More from the poet, Jack Miller, this from Failing and Flying:
“Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake. That everybody
said it would never work….
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.”
It is almost, if not fully, impossible to be grateful for failure in real time. As the birdie putt I played to breaks left breaks right as it passes the hole, it is simply not within my ability to be grateful as the ball rolls to a stop. Mumbling expletives, wondering why I play the game, those are within my grasp at the moment, but not an appreciation of failure. But then, as Miller suggests, it is merely an end to my triumph. I am still out on a golf course and enjoying the day. If I pull another ball out of my pocket, I may just make the putt – and there’s always the next hole.
I just like that phrase. I have not failed, I have only, at that moment, come to the end of my triumph. Yet, here I stand with another chance to triumph.
It occurs to me... 