You Will Fail

No matter what we do, we will fail.

No matter how hard a doctor may try to save your life, eventually, one will fail. No matter how funny a comedian is, one joke will not be laughed at. The most skilled musician will always miss a note somewhere. Michael Jordan was on the losing team hundreds of times. No matter how hard I try, I will end a sentence with a preposition, even though a preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.

Lindsey Stirling is a musician who I was aware of in a kind of peripheral sense. There are lots of youtube musicians I watch (a few even earn subscriptions from me), and she does collaborative work with them. It wasn't until just recently I decided to take a look at her solo stuff. I have to say, she's good, even earned my subscription (the only others that have earned that are The Piano Guys and Smooth McGroove). So I became curious, where did this siren of the strings come from. (oops another preposition)

Turns out she was on America's Got Talent. Well this is interesting. Now those who know me know that I seldom enjoy this show. The acts are either horrible, or the ones that show true promise are dismissed... usually by Piers. It's not about finding that one person every year, it's about laughing at everyone who failed before. (damn prepositions).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2xL7D5lPAk

I post this link not to laugh at her final audition, but to point out that she failed. She did not proceed to the next round, as far as America's Got Talent was concerned, she was done. Well it turns out that the judges were incorrect in their assessment of her. She has a huge youtube following and goes on tours all over the world. On that one audition, however she failed.

Gene Roddenberry had a vision of a much brighter future. He felt that humanity would one day actually achieve world peace and would begin to use our collective knowledge to explore space. Upon meeting other life forms, we would share our knowledge and further explore the universe. He felt this would make a good idea for a television show. The networks... disagreed with him. Failure #1. Eventually he managed to convince NBC to give him backing for a pilot. So came "The Cage." Well the network execs saw it, but didn't pick up the show. Failure #2. They did agree to let him try again, so "Where No Man Has Gone Before" was born. The network picked it up and thus began Star Trek. Well... after 2 years, NBC moved the show to the Friday night death slot and slashed their budget. Failure #3. If you watch those episodes from the third season, you do see where their budget was cut, and some episodes actually made it creative, others... well let's just say "Spock's Brain" had issues that had nothing to do with budget. The Show was canceled. Failure #4. Roddenberry tried to resurrect his idea with Star Trek: Phase II. The Networks refused. Failure #5. Well the company that owned the Star Trek franchise decided to make a motion picture. The movie was released... and critics panned it. Failure #6. Well the powers that be again decided to give it another go, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan hit the theaters. Widely regarded as one of the best productions in all of Star Trek. Today, Star Trek is in the world records as largest fan base, but it failed so many times to even begin.

So I tell you, you will fail. It is inevitable. Success, fortunately, is not determined by how many times you've fallen beforehand, but how few times it kept you down. You will only truly fail if you do nothing. That is nothing more than guaranteed failure. So do not give up. Eventually you will have one small instance, when you fail to fail.