This is a chapter from my latest book called (G)rains (o)f san(d)s. Learn more about the book here.
Thank you God for failure. Thank you for the good days and the bad days. Thank you for the journey. There are no failures, only lessons learnt. Better to try and fail than fail to try. For this chapter I made a bunch of notes and pieced them together. If mosaic was a style of writing, this would be it for me. Weirdly enough I am not afraid of failure as much as I am afraid of success. I want to live an ordinary and simple life. Much of what society deems as success is really the rat race. I guess I do not have a problem with success but the mainstream definitions of success. What does failure teach us? Failure teaches us to never give up because success can be right around the corner. Define your own definition of success. Enjoy the journey. Focus on learning. Focus on gaining experience. Focus on becoming wise.
Today I learnt how a pearl is formed. A pearl forms when an oyster responds to an irritant by coating it with layers of nacre over time, gradually transforming the irritation into something beautiful. That irritant is often a parasite but could be a grain of sand. Failure is like an irritant or grain of sand. Uncomfortable but produces something beautiful in the end. Failure lets us know what does not work for us. Failure is not an identity. Failure is an experience. There is a difference between "I failed" and "I am a failure". God is able and with God I am able and I only have to impress God. God judges intention and effort. This is something I have learnt in Islam.
I have aspirations of becoming an expert photographer, coder, youtuber, writer and fitness specialist. I am not near that with any of those but I keep trying. Discipline is hard. Consistency is hard. Lacking support and resources is hard. But I keep doing them even when the results are amateurish. My friend tells me that everyone who becomes an expert in those fields starts by producing mediocre, amateur work in isolation. The only difference between an amateur and a master is that the master endured the amateur phase longer. Sometimes I feel lost. Sometimes I feel like trying other things. But the passion I have for these crafts keeps me going. My friend says that failure makes room for curiosity, asking questions, accepting criticism, learning from people who are good at something, and becoming teachable.
I am reminded of the story of the farmer and the broken bucket. A man carried two buckets to collect water. One was perfect, while the other had a crack and leaked water along the way. The broken bucket felt ashamed, but the man showed it the flowers growing along its side of the path. He had planted the seeds knowing the bucket would water them. What seemed like a flaw was producing something beautiful. May our flaws and failures produce beautiful things - flawers. May we see the beauty in ourselves and our work where some others see none. God made each one of us imperfectly perfect. It is not about perfection, but about the quiet grace of enduring the process with sincere intention.
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