Failure is an opportunity ….(Tao Te Ching part 7)

Failure is an opportunity. If you blame someone else there is no end to the blame.

Therefore the Master fulfils her own obligations and corrects her own mistakes. She does what she needs to do and demands nothing of others.

Chapter 79, Tao te Ching

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We learn about failure early on in life, it seems. From a young age, kids race each other and get graded in school, learning quickly what it means to win or lose, pass or fail. The world seems to have created a stigma around it, that failing at something makes us a ‘failure’. Conversely, success seems to turn us into a ‘winner’. We turn external events somehow into personality characteristics.

This isn’t the first time that Lao Tzu has spoken about failure in the Tao Te Ching. In chapter thirteen, Lao Tzu told us, “Success is as dangerous as failure….What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure? Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky. When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.” The lesson? We have to get off the ladder!

Then, in chapter forty-four, he asked us, “Success or failure: which is more destructive?” He went on to tell us, “We will never truly be fulfilled, if we look to others for fulfilment. And, if our happiness depends on money, we will never be happy with ourselves.” Lesson: if we want to live a life of peace and contentment, the way we look at success must be changed.

And today in this chapter, he is here to tell us: failure is an opportunity! It might be a little paradoxical to the ‘failure is not an option’ slogan that we are used to hearing. But the Tao has absolutely no doubts of its forward momentum, we cannot mess it up. Without mentioning the word, Lao Tzu is teaching us how we should define our success, by seeing failure as an opportunity. If our true goal is peace and contentment, we must look at it this way.

When we fail, and we most definitely will (I bet even Lao Tzu did silly things..maybe), the opportunity for success is right there, in front of us, if we choose to see it as an opportunity to grow, to learn, to expand. If we choose to lean past the bitterness of failure, we can accept it and transform it into our evolutionary superpower. Doesn’t it make you feel a little ‘unfailable’? (You’re even allowed to make your own words up).

Failure is most definitely an opportunity. But, it isn’t an opportunity to blame someone else. That might be the easy path. But, that is a road that leads to nowhere. Lao Tzu understood this. He said, once you start going down that path, there is no end to the blame. We have to be willing to take full responsibility for our lives, whatever is happening.

It is true – it is never about someone or something else. It is always about us, if we truly want peace. Where there is blame, there is no growth. It can be a hard pill to swallow, because it means owning up and stepping out of the victim mode (which is much easier, but stagnant, to be in). However, taking absolute responsibility for ourselves possesses huge power, doesn’t it? Feel into it – feel into accepting ownership of your life, the good, the bad and the ugly. It is immensely powerful.

If we want to be free of our limitations, we have to unshackle ourselves from the externals we’ve blamed. We can’t end up annoyed at others; “Excuse me, I committed myself to eternal peace and you are really messing that up for me right now”. We have to take responsibility for making ourselves undisturbable….and therefore, free.

We spoke about this a little in the Satsang, in regards to our demands on those around us in service. Isn’t it funny sometimes, how we can get so mad at waiters, assistants, or anybody that is ‘serving’ us? Think: annoyed at the Lloyds Tsb phonebank person (me, the other week). We seem to expect that these people serve us, and when something goes wrong, we have a ‘right’ to be annoyed. So weird. Can we drop all of our rights and flip over to a gratitude that people are serving us at the best of their capacity? This changes the feeling completely.

Failure is an opportunity. An opportunity to be a wise and virtuous person, always moving towards greater peace and clarity. It is always, always about us and nobody else, no matter what the situation. We have to take full responsibility for our lives and let go of the blame game. We do what needs to be done and then let the Tao take care of the rest.

Om,

Adéle x