On Being “Not Finished”

By RJ Bardsley

Listening to NPR can be a dangerous thing.  Sunday afternoon I tuned in to hear the final bits of an interview on “failure” and how people cope with it.  The woman interviewed basically said that when you’re conscious of a failure, it can result in incredible growth.  And that’s a good thing – without growth things are static, and when they’re static, they’re finished.  She concluded by saying that she was much too young to be finished with her life.  She recognized that failure might happen if she took risks, but without that she’d never grow and never change.

I only caught that small part of the interview, so I’m not sure what the bigger scope of the story was, but it had an impact on me.  I used to feel that way about things in life – I can remember during my skiing days telling people that if you weren’t falling down on the slopes you weren’t skiing right.  You had to try the interesting and challenging trails, and that usually meant eating some snow from time to time.  But what was the alternative – the bunny slope for the whole day?  No thanks.  I wonder if I still have that perspective somewhere deep down inside of me.  I wonder if I still have that ability to reach outside my comfort zone and be daring again?  And what could I find to be daring at?  Those were the thoughts rolling around in my head on Sunday after listening to that broadcast.

I don’t know?  I would like to think that I’m not static and I’m not finished.  I’d also like to avoid failure of any kind.  I guess the two aren’t mutually exclusive though?  Maybe this is all just too philosophical for a blog post.

Any thoughts readers?