Failure has conditioned us to re-consider change. As we experience changes in our lives, whether we wish them or not, we also experience failure. When the failure becomes too painful, too great, the temptation is to resist change.
Failure becomes a bar, a vivid reminder, held so visible, in ones consciousness, it feels impossible to overcome. The pain becomes too much. It's no longer in ones mind to make the best of the situation, but to avoid it all together--a shrinking back, so as to remove any chance for another memory, another bar to overcome. We don't always realize such retreat is actually change, until there is nothing more to shelter us. Exposed, we now have a choice.
Life has two paths: grow or shrink. There is no middle road, a path of no change. Either we are growing, or we are shrinking.
For most of us, failure and change become tools for making ourselves, our lives, better--the path of growth. A few shrink, until there is nothing left.
