Most nights I lay down and assume that I will be able to sleep properly. I laugh as I write, because I really do try and trick myself into a peaceful sleep, but it just never seems to work out. It isn’t before long that my mind begins to race, and there I am staring at my popcorn ceiling. I usually get up and write some things down or toss and turn to try to calm down my thoughts. The other night as I stared and thought, my subconscious began to drift off and think about some of my past hopes and desires, and ventures of the past that I had worked on, and invested a lot of time in.
I went down the time line of so many opportunities that hadn’t worked out the way that I had planned. Against my better judgments I began to recant all of the efforts in my life that I had “failed” in. My zealous dreams that I was sure would work out, now held no place in my life. I thought of everything – particular relationships, career moves, things pertaining to my school and sports. For me sometimes, it’s easy to just forget about things that didn’t go as planned and just keep it moving. But this night, I wanted to push myself to really take a serious look at some things that didn’t work out, and try my best to find out why.
First, I counted the top 10 things I thought I had failed in. As I began to dissect each venture I decided that calling them “failures” was giving myself too much credit. You see, what I had actually been doing was, quitting. Quitting means not executing, not trusting, and not seeing it through. Quitting is evidence of a lack of faith, and of course faith is when we completely believe in something. I would quit due to a lack of faith in myself or because my dream and vision was not big enough, or compelling enough. I would later find that my quitting was a result of running from my calling and giving fear the last word. Quitting is giving up, and giving up will never ever lead to productivity, in fact, it will never cease to have the opposite effect which is leaving us further behind then where we started.
FAILURE is the result of an intentional effort. Failure not only means, I tried, but I tried well. Failure is the aftermath of a leap of faith, and a manifestation of courage. Which makes us to then ask the question: “Is failure always bad?” Or is it a much needed avenue on the way to greatness? One that we could even be thankful for…
Honest failure makes us strive to push the envelope, and eliminates our reservations as to what is and what isn’t possible.
“ Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better”
Justin
Justin Sapp 
always spitting truth! proud of you!
love you fam!
Hey! i like what u posted so what i am understanding is quitting is not finishing
and failure attempting something and not succeeding at it but at least risking everything to make it work. So like i can fail at math because i attempting it but quitting math is like i didnt even try so i gave up in the middle of whatever math i was taking. What about school, you can fail at school about going through it but would quitting it be like not finishing school. wow so many variables to think about i am also doing a personal inventory of what you said. That is some really great things to think about.