JK Rowling recently gave the commencement speech at Harvard and the theme she spoke of was failure. (Harvard Magazine has the whole speech.) I thought that pretty ironic (yet a wise choice) considering that image-wise the words "failure" don't ever seem to come in the same breath as "Harvard."
JK's speech reminds us all that no matter how broke, down, and depressed you may be, you can climb out of it. She talks specifically about how your own imagination is the thing that can help catapult you to your dreams. I just LOVED that she focused on that because creativity and imagination are right-brain qualities often kaboshed in school.
I can relate very much to JK's "broke days" while working on her creative dreams because I'm right in the midst of that myself. Seriously, there are days when you wonder why you are sacrificing so much to make your dreams come true when it would be so much easier and more pleasant to just get a regular job and have a steady paycheck like everyone else. As time goes on, you do start feeling like a total failure especially when you see other people achieving their life goals making you feel like everything is passing you by. Yes, we all have our own paths and things come to us when it is due time. I like to think that it's kind of a test the universe puts you through to see just how committed you are, and to see what you'll bring out in yourself to get to your vision. And in the end, the victory is so much sweeter.
But one thing that I personally believe about failure which JK didn't mention was that it is only truly failure when you give up. Yes, you can screw up and make mistakes on your way to becoming that published author, PhD holder, CEO, parent, or whatever you dream of, but if you grow and learn from those mistakes and it gets you closer and closer to your dream than it is not failure in my book. It is "growth opportunity." I remember this every time I feel like giving up before seeing my dreams become reality.
