goal

Failure is important; if you are a trapeze artist.

If every move was a guaranteed success there would be no tension, no excitement no show. No need to hold your breath as you wait to see if their outstretched arms will be received by the impossibly distant, saving arms of another.

When we think about failure in our own lives it can be easy to think about it in the same black and white terms. You either win or lose. I prefer to think about failure not in terms of what has been lost but instead what has been learned.

I must be crazy for trying this, I snorted mockingly at myself and gently shook my head.  I propped up my chin with my hand and felt a rogue forefinger move into position over my mouth, apparently concerned it might say something compromising, if left unsupervised.

It was of course the risk that I needed to take.

I coaxed my focus away from an empty daydream and turned my desk clock to face me, 03.43am. I sighed. Fourteen hours until my thesis deadline. I’d been awake for 2 days straight, finishing the references and drafting a conclusion, finding myself more frequently than not, held hostage by micro sleeps. My thoughts falling adrift for a moment, seemingly, only to discover that I had been staring into space, my mind lost in a vacant vacuum, no recorded thoughts, for nearly half an hour at a time. I wondered to myself if this is what it feels like for Buddhist monks when they achieve a deep meditative state. Have I accidentally mastered the art of meditation through my catatonic fatigue?

The change of scenery was very welcome I thought to myself, as I sat down to breakfast. A two day residential course at a beautiful and quintessentially English training site, with 30 foot ceilings, red velvet curtains and paintings of 18th century admirals and merchants framing the walls. I’d gone for the full English and midway through a Cumberland sausage I caught eyes with the most beautiful human I had ever seen.