Great quote and fail some more...

I was reading an article by Tom Brokaw recently (by the way, he has the most distinctive voice of anyone broadcaster I've ever heard). He was commenting on his life and how he messed up during college going directions that he shouldn't have. He made this true statement his notes: "Failure can come quickly and it takes a long time to go away."  This is a simple and powerful truth about failures in life. Sometimes our failures give us a reputation that never goes away and we have to deal with them our whole lives. Sometimes the failures fade over time and sometimes they do go away pretty fast (most times the fade takes a while). 

This statement makes me think two important thoughts about life:

The first one: We should be careful of the big failures in life. We will fail in life, a lot, and once in awhile the failures will be big, but if we can avoid the largest failures in life, by learning from others and doing what's right (God gives us great wisdom form His word) then we won't have the reputations that follow those failures. We will still have some failure, because we are imperfect humans, but we can avoid the huge failures in life by just getting away from them in the first place.

The second one: We should keep going after the big failures in life. Again, we will fail big sometimes and those failures will hurt us, and others, and may harm our reputations. I failed miserably in junior high and high school and people I know from back then still aren't sure what to think of me because of the foolish choices I made and the hurt I caused. I can't ever gain those times back, but I have done my best to make amends and seek forgiveness where I could. 

The best part of failure is the fact that we can move on and we don't have to just sit or hide. It may take time for reputations to be rebuilt, but they can be. It may take time for hurts to heal, but they do.  It may take time to have the kind of influence that you should, but you will. Don't give up after you fail...you'll make it just fine if you make the wrongs right and keep moving forward.

Lessons Learned: Keep going, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, smile and try again.

Thoughts: What have you done to improve your reputation? Not spin your reputation, but truly rebuild it?