Failing Successfully

"I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward."

-Thomas Edison

These last few weeks since I have been back at college, I have really begun to explore what I am really going to do with my life. I know it is sort of late in the game to be figuring this out, but I've begun to face the music in a sense that I don't know what I'm going to do after college. As I have been exploring possible careers for me, I seem to have learned more about life than a career or job. Here are a couple of my discoveries:

The more I have looked, the more things I find that aren't what I want to do. This was very discouraging at first, but I do know that there is some career out there that is the right one for me. When I find the next thing that I thought I could do for a living that doesn't work, I know I am one step closer to finding that perfect job. Its ok to not find that perfect job right away. People change jobs all the time. This is normal.

A stumbling block for me has been that there is more than one thing I am passionate about. I am a pretty passionate guy when it comes to things I like. I tend to become very inspired by lots of little things, and then pursue them. For example, I became inspired to create films after watching a handful of Rob Bell's NOOMA videos at my small group in high school. To me, they were hip, artistic, and deep, and I was like "hey, I want to be hip, artistic, and deep!". I became inspired to do music after seeing a local artist rise to fame while I was in high school. Heck, I even became inspired to play basketball as a kid because of the movie Space Jam. Now my thing that I'm on seems to be freelance writing. I've been taking a class on it, and I gotta say, I've got a lot of work to do on it, but I don't really have anywhere to go but up.

Something recently that I have found many people don't do is to define what success means to them. Where do I want to be in ten years? twenty years? What do I want my life to look like? Where do I want to live? These are all questions that I have never really asked myself until now. It's good to know where you want to be before you pick a direction.

This journey is a new and exciting chapter in my life. I do not know what he future holds for me. As I continue on, there are a few fundamental truths that I have to hang on to:

-God has a plan for my life. He has given me a good mind, and many opportunities to use it, along with many other talents and gifts. He didn't give these to me in order for them to be squandered, but rather to be used for His Kingdom and His Glory.

-It's ok to be searching for a career path at this point in my life. I sometimes forget that I am only twenty years old, and a sophomore in college. This is my time in life to explore the world, and to see all that wonders and treasures it holds. In the next few years, the rest of my life will be shaped and formed into what it will be. I shouldn't feel ashamed or worried about not knowing at this point.

-There is a difference between a calling and a career. For so long, I have thought that the two weresynonymous. A career is what I will be doing to support myself and my family. A calling can include a career, but goes much deeper than that. A calling goes into who we are. God has not only called us to a certain job, but has mad us to be a certain person. It's much more important to focus on what who we are going to be, not what we are going to be.

- It's okay to not be the best at something. I have had problems with pride my entire life, and I am learning that it is not about climbing to the top of whatever achievement ladder I'm on currently. It's not about comparing how good we are to the next guy, because I will always be better or worse than them. Not who I am supposed to be.

-Failure is normal, and something that everyone experiences. I have been so worried to fail in my life. I have learned that failure is a necessary part of success. Many of history's greatest people have experienced large amounts of doubt, discouragement and failure in their own live's before becoming who they are. Probably the most famous quote of this comes from Thomas Edison when asked about discovering the light bulb.

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that it won't work."

In the quest of discovering my own personal lightbulb, I have just found a lot of ways that it doesn't shed any light. I am going to keep searching, and want to encourage you all to do the same.