Failure is an interesting word. My brother and I were talking about it earlier today. 

First, I love how stories get to the heart of so many things we wrestle with each day. From a recent quote I learned, attributed to Cassandra Clare:

Fiction is truth, even if it is not fact.

I’ve found this to be true over the last few decades. I’ve learned so much from the books around me. 

From Jonathan’s post:

I’m drawn to continuous improvement, to progress over perfection, even as I struggle internally with accepting that plans not working as expected is OK, is unavoidable, is human, and as part of a forward-moving process is essential to building something that lasts.

I don’t have as much negative feelings toward the word failure, but I do get it. We should talk about the work we do (whether it succeeded or not) in ways that don’t strike us as negative. 

From the book Burnout:

We thrive when we have a posiitve goal to move toward, not just a negative state we’re trying to move away from. If we hate where we are, our first instinct often is to run aimlessly away… We need something positive to move toward