Saturday, September 5, 2009

It’s Not Over ‘Til It’s Over – But Remember, Failure Is Gold!

Marcos Ambrose is the hero of every Australian following motor sport in the American NASCAR Championship. It came as startling news to see him lose the lead on the final corner of a Nationwide Series race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal. He was naturally devastated having run until then an impeccable race. It illustrates an important life lesson—it’s not over until it’s actually over.

Likewise, many people having brilliantly negotiated their first thirty or forty years experience the same thing. Yet, instead of being pipped at the post like Ambrose was their grip on life slips at a point when they were supposed to be able to relax and enjoy life’s benefits most.

This happens to so many who’ve been wildly successful in their younger years. It’s a difficult thing to sustain. We run the perfect race and are blessed so much. And somehow—in the midst of the good life—we forget the true essence of life; that there’s a lot of suffering out there.

To lose a race like Ambrose did, even though it’s a bitter and instantly tormenting thing, is a valuable lesson—better than gold. There is much more to be learned in failure than in success.

And it’s the same thing for us when we’re tripped up along the journey of life. IF we’re cognisant of this... IF we’re brave enough... IF we have enough patience of faith... the ruination event that comes to crush our lives can actually be the absolute ‘making’ event of our lives.

Somehow this is inexplicable, yet there’s nothing truer. There’s a huge world out there beyond us and like 99 percent of it we don’t even see, let alone grasp.

For Marcos Ambrose and for us—the critical failure, the humping defeat, the disaster that is our lives at a given point—is the very reason for our newly expanded worldview. We don’t see it this side; it only appears in the light of faith.

Taste and you will see—it’s an enormous world out there. It awaits you as certainly as it awaited me and every other individual blessed with bodily life.

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