Compost

"Failure is the fertilizer of success." -Dan Miller

A few months ago I attended a David Lanz concert. He is one of my favorite piano players, and I thought something he said during the concert was quite profound: "I've written thousands of songs, but most of them have never been heard. Those songs served as the compost that produced the 'flowers' that were included on my albums." In other words, for every song that made the cut there were many failed attempts.

When I was 26 years old I decided I wanted to learn to play the piano. It was much more difficult than I expected it to be, and I experienced a lot of discouragement and frustration along the way. But I also experienced some surprising successes, and while I am far from virtuosic I am a better player than I ever expected to be. It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where I am, but it was worth it.

I began cross-country skiing when I was 7 years old, and my father learned to ski as an adult. He has had to work quite hard to develop his skills, and even though he has been cross-country skiing for more than 25 years he still reads books and watches videos and takes lessons to help him improve his technique. By contrast, I am able to operate on instinct and my success seems to come naturally. Despite our different approaches, though, we are both quite talented and enjoy skiing together.

A friend of mine spent many years as an adult learning to snowboard, and she is quite good at it now. Her example reminds me that mediocrity and failure are simply opportunities to learn and grow.

Often the greatest failure lies in not trying. On too many occasions fear of failure has kept me from attempting something that I may be good at (I'll never know unless I try!) At times I avoid taking risks because I feel inadequate when I compare myself to talented professionals who have spent years developing their skills. But those professionals were once like me (we all have to start somewhere), and they likely experienced many failures while on their journey to success.

In the garden of life sometimes we harvest flowers, sometimes we harvest weeds, and sometimes we make compost. The key is to keep trying, to be "in the game" and moving forward, letting our light shine as we seek to constantly improve and make a positive difference in the world.

"Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat." -F. Scott Fitzgerald