On Failure

         From a conversation about failure... Listen. Because of everything I've witnessed, felt, struggled through, or cried over, anything that resembles failure in the future will be taken as experience rather than a loss. I am realistic about the possibility of failure. I am just no longer open to the suggestion. You do make a lot of sense and I believe you are right, just in regard to others in general. I am way too adamant in my belief to accept the inevitability of failure. Call me stubborn, clueless, and unrealistic, but if that's what drives me to succeed, my unyielding attitude is nothing but productive. Besides, you are too deep of a person to advocate such an absolute theory. You are elaborating on the "Hope for the best but expect the worst" motto. Currently, and fortunately, I don't acknowledge the worst anymore. The worst is over with. The worst was dealing with the consequences of my stupid actions. The worst was watching my mother and son cry to me through a glass partition. The worst was missing my father's funeral because I was incarcerated. The worst was realizing that I had failed the people I love. 

          For 3 years I felt worthless, unimportant. I was an expendable component to the world, a strain on the hearts of the few people that still cared. Some people speak of rock bottom. I lived it. I was stripped of everything, my family, my "friends", my pride, my dignity, and most my sanity. But I realized very quickly that it was all MY fault. I had failed. So I came to this beautiful revelation/commitment: It will never happen again. In no way, shape, or form. I don't just address failure by category, like criminal behavior or relationships. I combine it all into a ball of detrimental ingredients to life itself, then toss it aside. I don't hope for the best and expect the worst. I expect the best. Whatever decisions I make, even with negative outcomes, will be deemed the best for me. Because I know in my damaged little heart that when I made that decision, it was with a clean conscience and a refined dedication to happiness. So, yes, I may become surprised, shocked, crushed, or even suspicious of my confidence. But, I will never believe I failed. I failed enough in this life; it no longer exists to me.