"Why do we fall Bruce?"

Falling hurts. 

Failing is bitter. No one likes it. The mere presence and possibility of failure and rejection prevents most of humanity from meeting their potential. Think about it. What would you do if you knew you could not fail? If someone came along and removed failure from the equation, what would you do with your life? What keeps you from doing that? Fear.

Let me be perfectly clear and honest. People fail. I'm going to fail, you're going to fail, everyone does. Quite a few times actually. Failure breeds doubts, fears, and discouragement. We know that we're human and prone to make mistakes. Throughout our lives we face disappointments, broken hearts, and shattered dreams. All these experiences compound and it starts to look pretty scary and depressing. Then, when faced with a situation where we may say the wrong thing or perform poorly, we step down from the challenge, and we aren't able to give it our all. Sound familiar?

Guess what. We misunderstand the concept of failure. Let's start by looking into some stories. Take Batman for example. In the most recent film, it begins showing Bruce Wayne, crippled and tired. Gotham, the city where he lives comes under attack and out of a sense of duty become Batman again. His tired body can't handle the battles and he ends up broken and thrown into a prison of sorts.

 He exercises and works to overcome his physical frailties and climbs out of the prison, while the inmates chant 'Rise'. He goes back to Gotham stronger and more determined than before, and I won't spoil the end if you haven't seen it, but he does lots of really cool Batman things. He had to fall before he could rise. Now pick any story, and see if the same pattern isn't there. The Lion King, Lord of the Rings, Rocky, Cinderella, every story has to have a fall before success. Why?

People fail! And people love to see someone who overcomes failure. Failure is a part of success. We can't really succeed until we have failed a couple times. Yeah it gets hard, yeah it hurts. But it is an eternal principle. Adam had to fall for us to be saved. We had to become mortal so we could put on immortality. Christ died before he was resurrected. What is sown in corruption is raised in incorruption. It is a refining fire. Failure is absolutely vital. So love it.

My last few posts have been about Vision and how to get literally anything you want. On the road there you will fail. The key is to have a vision that is so powerful and so moving to you that it will put you back on your feet. What is worth failure to you? Have a little faith. If at first you don't succeed, good. Because it means you're on the right track. Enjoy the fall, because it means victory is on the horizon. We need to fall. So we can learn to pick ourselves back up.