Jeremy’s post on failure rang true to me.

Failure is someone’s judgement call, including your own. But a judgment is made on a snapshot in time, usually without getting the complete picture.

Often people make a judgement as if it was on just one or two frames of a film. They have no idea what frames were or are to follow, yet they make a call on a few. I don’t blame them, seeing is believing.

But increase or decrease your range of frames – how many frames you actually count in your judgement over time – and the result may change.

I guess same can be said for success. Judge too soon it may look great, expand your frame set and the story can change to a failure (just ask Bernie Madoff, I know, I digress!)

I don’t know, maybe failure is when a consensus is reached among many that it really is a failure. But it’s still subjective. Galileo was proving that the Earth moves around the sun, yet the consensus of the ignorants got the attention of the Inquisition.

This is a long way to say that failure is required to get to success. It doesn’t guarantee success, but at some point the frame of reference will paint future success as current failure. That’s because you try, and hopefully learn, and adapt. You keep making steps like a baby so you can learn how to walk, and you fail and fall until one day you’re on your feet. You fail, so you can succeed.

But without trying and failing, you are always living by consensus. Not my cup of tea.