#123 - failure and success

i have been reading a book called wooden: a lifetime of observations and reflections on and off the court, by john wooden. coach wooden was an amazing and storied coach and is a popular motivational speaker. he started his collegiate coaching career at indiana state then moved to UCLA where his teams won ten national championships, seven in a row, and had an overall record of 620-147. he coached for nearly twenty years there and no one even comes close to his achievements on the court. he is in the basketball hall of fame as both a player and coach. by these parameters you could say he is very successful but to him success is not national championships or number of games won. he said "try your hardest in all ways and you are a success" and "effort is what counts in everything". this is a man of principles, he was born in 1910 and raised by hard working parents. now this isn't really a post or biography about coach wooden. he is very successful and i could quote his book to fill pages but what i've been thinking about lately is failure and success. when i read my google reader today i came upon this video, which i've seen before:

michael jordan is my favorite athlete, no doubt. no one thinks about his so-called "failures" because he is a winner and a success. it's not so much an issue of half-full or -empty but people makes mistakes and fail at things. it's a fact. you cannot do anything if you do not try it. another wooden quote: "the individual who is mistake-free is also probably sitting around doing nothing". so i say this, what am i doing?! i'm sitting around, mostly cause i'm under the weather and it's way too hot to get anything done but i have been a bit lazy lately.

but i had my first "summer class" today. it's not a real class, i am taking this mandatory "transitional" class for those who failed a class and are left behind. so this class is to get us up to speed with where we should be. today we spend 5 hours in the lab practicing our skills then we have 40 hours in the next two weeks at clinicals. the last time i even touched an IV was probably in november at my last clinical, many months ago. i don't remember how to set up a piggyback. i am sketchy on how to insert a catheter. so these are things i had to work on. how can i be successful when i don't keep my skills up? how can i be successful when i am not putting forth my best effort with all i've got or hanging back waiting for someone to teach me? i cannot. i understand now what i need to do. perhaps that is why i am here in the first place, maybe i was not ready. on grey's anatomy, george o'malley failed his intern exam. so he had to take the whole year over, his friends moved on to become residents and he was still an intern. that is how i feel. my original class is graduating at the end of the month, i've got till next june. oh the horror. BUT, i am back on the horse, learned my lessons, and i will be a success because no one will work harder to achieve their potential than me. i will be a success.