Today’s Daily Stoic writing prompt: Am I actually learning from my failures?

Usually, I am. But that’s a process that’s taken a long time to develop, and sometimes the learnings aren’t immediate. My failures are often my tendency to back away from things I’m not good at before I have a chance to fail, so they’re more failures of potential. I love learning new things, but in the case of skills, I have to work through that awkward period of not being any good at something. It makes me feel vulnerable if it’s something I feel I should pick up quickly, or if competition is involved.

I need to be more OK with failing, because it really does lead to deeper learning. I know that for sure.

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The half day off was appreciated. A little time at the driving range, a nice walk (it was just 17C out), then a run to Fabricland followed by stopping into Denninger’s because it was right there on the way and finding the asiago chicken dinners we love were in stock. A couple more flags (Belgium and France!) for Car Flag Bingo (we’re up to 15 now). A bit of a Redbubble shopping spree, and I’m acquiring two more necklaces from the ScienceJewelry1824 site. Then embroidery and the Eoforwic meeting.

This is the anniversary of the first 100 days. Last year, this is where I stopped blogging daily until I started doing the Daily Stoic prompts the following October. I’ve been reading over last year’s entries, and some are quite prophetic, while others obviously were a bit off. Last year this time, CWH was just about to reopen, we were about to enter that lovely period of “social circles” (aka bubbles), and I think a lot of people thought we might have gotten transmission completely under control. That, of course, wasn’t the case, and we had substantial second and third waves. I don’t think anyone could have predicted we’d be where we are with vaccines now, though (17 days to peak immunity for me!).

It’s been a long haul, and it’s not over. 465 days since I started these diaries it’s been. The siege is not over yet, but it is on the verge of changing into something different, something that’s not quite clear yet.

This time, I’m not backing off on the writing. I committed to doing the full year of the Daily Stoic meditations, and I’m now within about 120 days of reaching that finish line. I am hoping that soon enough I will have thoughts to share on the tricky process of going out into a world with people in it again.