DW's Blog

The myth of failure or lollapalooza

by DW Green — May 16, 2018

When you have love within you, fear cannot survive.

I’ve been thinking about writing a book; The Life and Times of a Lazy Man. But since I’m lazy, the title may be as far as I get!

I receive a weekly email from Dictionary.com. Sometimes there are great words in the email. This week’s email had one of those great words. Lollapalooza. Not a word we use every day. Lollapalooza has a neat sound and the letters in the spelling look pretty cool! Lollapalooza means: an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance. When was the last lollapalooza event you had in your store? How ‘bout planning a lollapalooza Friday. A series of food activities that are extraordinary!

Back to being lazy, here’s my blog topic today. The myth of failure. Written by one of my favorite writers, Dr. Wayne Dyer.

“This may come as a surprise to you, but failure is an illusion. No one ever fails at anything. Everything you do produces a result. If you’re trying to learn how to catch a football and someone throws it to you and you drop it, you haven’t failed. You simply produced a result. The real question is what you do with the results that you produce. Do you leave, and moan about being a football failure, or do you say, “Throw it again,” until ultimately you’re catching footballs? Failure is a judgment. It’s just an opinion. It comes from your fears, which can be eliminated by love. Love for yourself. Love for what you do. Love for others. Love for your planet. When you have love within you, fear cannot survive. Think of the message in this ancient wisdom: “Fear knocked at the door. Love answered and no one was there.”

That music that you hear inside of you urging you to take risks and follow your dreams is your intuitive connection to the purpose in your heart since birth. Be enthusiastic about all that you do. Have that passion with the awareness that the word enthusiasm literally means “the God (enthos) within (iasm).” The passion that you feel is God inside of you beckoning you to take the risk and be your own person.

I’ve found that perceived risks are not risky at all once you transcend your fears and let love and self-respect in. When you produce a result that others laugh at, you’re also stirred to laughter. When you respect yourself, stumbling allows you to laugh at yourself as an occasional stumbler. When you love and respect yourself, someone’s disapproval is not something you fear and avoid. The poet Rudyard Kipling declared, “If you can meet triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same . . . yours is the earth and everything that’s in it.” The key word here is impostors. They’re not real. They exist only in the minds of people.

Follow your right brain, listening to how you feel, and play your own unique brand of music. You won’t have to fear anything or anyone, and you’ll never experience that terror of lying on your deathbed someday, saying, “What if my whole life has been wrong?” Your invisible companion on your right shoulder will prod you each and every time you’re moving away from your purpose. It makes you aware of your music. So listen—and don’t die with that music still in you.”

Lollapalooza!!