Failure is the only option…

I’m rewatching Game of Thrones – its just so epic, and I watch it from a writer’s perspective too. How they structure the individual storylines, all the cliffhangers and then start weaving them all together. A fabulous tapestry that has horrified, shocked, and entertained me.

I’ve reached the part where Jon Snow is brought back to life after being murdered by his own men. Ser Davos is talking him into another heroic charge and Jon says he can’t do it. He says to Ser Davos ‘I failed’ and Ser Davos goes. ‘Yes, you did and now go and fail again.’

And sometimes life feels like that. Like ‘why bother’. It didn’t work last time, no-one appreciated my efforts, I’m just too damn tired to start over.

That, my friend is exactly the time when we have to dig deep and find some scrap of character, determination to get up again and start over.

And we keep getting up and sooner or later we learn, we adapt and we prevail. You can win at life, you must never give up on yourself.

Failure is the only option, to learn, and to eventually succeed at something we must accept that at first we will fail. And that’s tough for us, because for many reasons, demanding parents, not feeling good enough in ourselves, scared of ridicule and rejection, we never want to fail, never want to be seen as a failure and so…we never start.

And what a loss to the world and to our lives that truly is. Make an attempt to do that thing you really want to do but aren’t sure how, then when it fails, learn from that and make another attempt, and another and another. You’ll get there.

Just a child finally learns to walk, you will finally do what you set out to do. Persevere, find your grit and determination and keep on keeping on it.

You’ve got this and I’ll believe in you until you do too.