slippier stepping stoned

"Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest steeping stones to success."

Dale Carnegie

Failure as a stepping stone is indeed a firm platform, but it is also more slippery. I've been pondering what I consider safe and what I rely on to make my way through life. I think that Mr. Carnegie is right in seeing failure as an intricate part of one's journey towards success, but I also recognize that the dizzy heights of boldness can also be a comfortable shortcut to reach your destination.

When I was a teenager I was a store-man in a chicken factory. To safe time we'd run across the girders between the 30 foot high palette shelves. Girders with inches on either side of your foot and nothing between you and the concrete floor but your self-confidence and 30 feet of thin air. We'd play on those girders, we'd eat on them, we'd lay back and close our eyes for a five minute rest period, we even played cards on them. A thin rail of rusty metal with a deadly drop on either side was home for me in my late teens. When asked why we weren't afraid of the drop, we'd scratch our heads and explain to the old store manager that as no one had ever fallen, so why would we care how high the drop was. There were boring, rainy days when we would race one another across the length of the store and back again, occasionally losing our footing and having to lunge for a handhold. We'd laugh at the close call and then run on. 

I got older, I didn't fall, but I did move on from being a dirt-ingrained ragamuffin in a smelly chicken factory, and in some ways I became less bolder as my feet were set on more comfortable and conforming stones. In other areas I have retained my habit of running on what others would consider as unwise pathways to get to where I want to be. 

I took a spill this month, slipping on my own self-confidence and taking a tumble that bruised my ego, and delayed my journey and also delayed those who journey with me. The failure of that fall has certainly created a series of stepping stones for me to use as a pathway. These stones are slippery with cautious concern, and lack the grander view my high girders of confidence offered.  But they also require the same delicate balancing act as the "high"-way of confidence, so in some ways it is still a very familiar way for me to walk. 

In my life I've had a lot of opportunity to walk on the slippery stones of failure. They do indeed lead to success just as surely as running confidently on the thin rail of confidence. I need a few moments to gain my balance when I begin to use this slippery slope to success, but once on it I find it just as much fun as the confident highway to success. 

I'm the product of my place of origin and a safe place to cross was always a little different for we who grew up in a place devoid of safety. I think my attitude to the path I need to cross to reach the next destination causes some of those who watch my way of walking through life a little disconcerting. But when the way across a street was past a soldier who could be blown up in the next minute you tend to take a more phlegmatic approach to getting to where you want to be. 

This month I'll be walking carefully along a slippery pathway created by my falling down last month, the stones that create the way to success will need a modicum more care to walk on, but they'll get me to the next place even if they cause me some disquiet because I'm not able to run as fast I normally do. 

We all have a story about how we learned to walk through life. For me part of that story was accepting conflict as an everyday companion, and danger as a toy we played with to distract us from the boredom of manual labor. 

What is your attitude towards walking through life?