Fail

The question: Is it better to have tried and failed than to have not tried? Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved?

Now, being an unbelievably lazy person, I would love to say it is better to just not try. A lot of the time, that is what I end up doing, a lot of the time I'll settle for mediocrity simply because I do not feel motivated enough to make the extra effort. It would also make writing this blog a lot easier. Hurrah for laziness. However, if I were to say that, I would be lying, because that is not what I believe. First off, let us look at the benefits of not trying.......... Well, there really aren't any, are there? I suppose there aren't any downsides, either. If you don't put yourself out there emotionally, you can't get crushed. If you don't apply for the higher job, you can't feel bad if you don't get it. If you run away instead of standing and fighting, whatever the situation is, you can't get hurt. The thing is, at the root of all of these examples of not trying is fear. Fear of getting hurt, crushed, disappointed, etc. It seems to me that you can live without trying, but it will be a life lived in constant fear, which really is no life at all.


Now lets look at the benefits of trying and failing. I suppose it depends on what you are trying and failing to do, but there are some benefits that you gain in just about any situation. The first would be experience. If you fail, then you learn a couple of things that you should not do the next time you try. Thomas Edison said "I have not failed. I have simply found a thousand ways that don't work." Further, my old violin teacher told me once that he hated it when people said "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." He told me that it should be changed to "If at first you don't succeed, try a different way." Running into a brick wall over and over again isn't going to get you to the other side. So in trying and failing, you learn what not to do next time, e.g. run head on into the brick wall. Next time, you might try going under, over or around the wall, and then you get to see what's on the other side. You can look around, and just about everything that we as a species have created is the product of trial and error. Very rarely does anything go perfectly on the first try. When someone sets out to create a great software program, he writes all the code, distributes it, and then he gets feedback. For a program like Windows Vista, the feedback is 99% negative. Seriously, the program is a nightmare. But the programmers take the feedback, revisit the code, and fix the problems. Maybe Vista is a bad example, since it's been out a few years and it's still a nightmare, but the point still stands, that very rarely does something good just happen, it almost always requires a great deal of work.

With something like a relationship, that work is constant. Sometimes relationships are easy, but the moment you stop trying, everything goes downhill. Sometimes it goes downhill anyway. And while there are always painful memories when a relationship ends, there are also good ones. I, for one, would say it's much better to have the good memories to smile about and the bad ones to learn from, than to have never tried, and wonder what might have been. In any situation you have the choice to act or not, and when you act, you learn. When you go passive, you stay the same person and there is no opportunity for personal growth. That's not to say it is always better to act, there are situations when it is far better to listen and observe, but in those situations where the only reason you have for not acting is that you are afraid then it is better to try and fail than to not try at all. And if you really think about it, if you don't try at all, then you still fail, only this way you can fool yourself into believing you didn't. When you try and fail, you learn something about whatever it is you're trying for. When you don't try, you fail not only at the thing you wanted, but at life. Sure, if you run away you can't die, but you can't live either.

Names

Talk about names--specifically your name and how it has shaped your life and if you believe it is the best name for you.  If you don't, why not?  And what name would you rather have?


I rather like my names, first, middle and last, and pretty much all for the same reasons. I have always liked conflict, battle and chaos. I love massive thunderstorms where you can literally feel the thunder shaking your bones. Sometimes when there is power and chaos all around you, that is the only time you can truly feel at peace. Maybe I'm weird, but I think it has a lot to do with the love of adventure that most everyone feels at some point in their lives. My favorite poem is Tennyson's "Ulysses," in large part because of its portrayal of that spirit of adventure. Odysseus (The Greek form of the name Ulysses) himself was quite the adventurer, and I always used to envy him for his name, which means "The Great Contender." It just seemed to me to be somewhat glorious, almost as if he could stand against the world, and hold his ground. Anyways, what does this have to do with names? I say I "used" to envy Odysseus his name, because that was before I considered my own names. Let's take my first name. Joshua. All of my siblings and I are named after people from the Christian Bible, and in this case, my namesake is the commander of the Israelite army, and over the course of his leadership, the Israelites are never beaten nor turned back, and always they remain oriented towards God. Under his leadership, the Israelites took the Promised Land. To use modern language, the man was a beast. Now let's take my middle name, Michael. This gets even better, as Michael the Archangel is, in the Catholic tradition, the field commander for the armies of God. It does not get much more glorious than that. Finally, let's look at my last name, Kelly. Joshua and Michael both have their origins in Hebrew, but as any Hebrew blood I might possibly have would come from centuries ago, I do not identify myself as Hebrew at all. Kelly, on the other hand, has distinctively Irish origins, and I have always been proud of my Irish heritage. The original Irish for the name Kelly comes from the name "O Ceallagh." Between Scottish, Irish and English, "Ceallaigh" can mean anything from "Bright-headed" to "One who frequents churches." There are, however, two particular meanings that I like, and those are "Warrior" and "Strife," and they tie into the meanings behind my first and middle names. Conflict, battle, adventure, all of these make me feel like I am a warrior, as if it is in my name and in my blood.


So all three of my names give me several important aspects of my identity, which are strength, and the courage to fight, as well as piety, and a love of God.