Burying our failures, great concept as we dig deep into the ground and throw the failures and the bad omens away.  In certain ways, sounds like a dream come true but is this reality? If we are able to take that failure and bury it will we be able to leave it there or will it linger? Do we need to have it linger to learn or is it where we have learned and need to bury it and move on? Sometimes we dwell on things as we are unable to find an answer to the failure where others we move on. Does this mean that we found the answer or that it was not really a big part of the grand scheme and just moved on?

Can We Bury Our Failures?

We all fail. It happens. Some are highly publicized and some are not. Some have tremendous repercussions while others are brushed under the rug and we move on but we at certain times reminded of them. We see a scenario that starts to feel like that failure and we react to ensure that we do not go there again. We have put it behind us and go along but there is something that stops us dead in our tracks that reminds us. Remember your first kiss, the place, the weather, what he/she looked like … you remember that moment and left a piece of you there; until you remember the heart break and how that felt and you would never do that again.

Leaving a Piece of You There

Failure is hard to swallow. Sometimes it us so very public that you cannot find a hole big enough to jump into whereas other times you are able to “enjoy” that private failure that is the gift that keeps on giving. Either way, it feels like it will never go away. It lingers, it takes its toll and we feel like it is that Scarlet Letter. You think about it over and over, if I did this, if I did that, If I said this or that, if only … In doing this, we are are leaving a piece of us there as when we go back there, we stop and think. Which begs the question can we just bury our failures? Are we able to put them behind us and move on?

The Long Term Thought Process

The long term though process is big, it is actually kinda huge. We hear what you say today, will have an impact tomorrow. This is not always true as we know. Sometimes and shall I say many times we are always reminded that we said this or that as it relates to something in particular. But if we go deeper, is what you are saying today a part of your long term business or even personal branding? Will what you are saying today be so rewarding that you will enjoy that great success or be so damaging that there is no way you can come out of it? I think in long term. 5  years ago and years previous I was short term. Nature of my surroundings in a way. I worked in jobs where do this, this and this to finish this, this and this. There was not long term there as finish this to start this. It was do today and think about tomorrow, tomorrow. I enjoyed what I did but I yearned for that long term thinking of tomorrow, the next day and the day after that. Hence leaving one career to thrive in another.

Open For Interpretation

I suppose everything is open to interpretation. Glass half empty vs half full, success in small steps vs instant topping the charts. We interpret things differently. Heck the law is fought each day based upon an interpretation of the needs of a client. Interpretation is a part of our every day life as we see and hear things that we are able to process, listen to and formulate a story of sorts of. Remember the game of telephone as a child. Starts with a phrase/sentence that by the end has been so changed that we all laugh wondering how it happened to get so twisted in the end.

As I write this I think of a myriad of scenarios where we can bury our failures but yet digging a deep hole and walking away are we or are we tabling it to remind us once again to never go there again?

We should always learn from our failures so that we grow and burying them seems almost elementary but it almost seems harder to bury them and move on than it does to dwell? Yes?

Just probably thinking out loud a bit here that is a different tone to this blog but after reading about Coach Ryan burying the football I got to thinking about burying failures … but even more so, the negativity that surrounds the failure. Maybe the failure itself is not the bigger issue but the negativity that is/we associate with it is?

What do you think? Can we bury our failures or should we bury the negativity and focus on what we are really great at?

photo credit: coljay72