The sun sets on another day…
Sunset was beautiful and the skies impressed me as they sprayed color once again across the horizon. I felt it peace and yet something was on the edge of what was all around.
When I was 25 I tried to make beef stew for the first time. I didn’t have a clear idea of how it was made, nor did I ever see anyone else make it. Although I had lived alone for a long time and cooked for myself most of my life, beef stew wasn’t something I ever made. I just understood concepts.
I sat and put things together and in theory I was making the perfect beef stew. In theory this was going to be extremely tasty as I used fines to cuts, then worked my way back with a variety of vegetables focusing of course on carrots and potatoes. The stew was going to be great.
What I didn’t take into account was my own stupidity. I had cooked nearly everything else and didn’t realize the temperature needed to be about medium warm, so I ended up overheating and eventually burning everything. I tried to correct this by mixing in more water and then milk to make a gravy, the scorched milk instantly smelled bad, and the scorched everything else smelled a little worse. I used flour to thicken the weirdly sickening mixture that I was creating and ended up with burnt meat inside of lumpy gravy. I didn’t end up eating more than one piece and froze the rest thinking I would find a way to fix it. A few days later I threw it away. What a huge mistake.
Fast forward to this weekend. I’m more than a little older, and more than a little wiser. As I cook the meat and worked in the vegetables then simmered everything else to wonderful perfection, I had fantastic beef stew. I had seasoned it a lot of different ways and didn’t use milk at all, nor flower at all, just a little extra and a lot of spices as I cooked down the stock into a healthy broth. The taste was beyond belief. As I sat having a little of my stew, I felt good about it all. Not because I had screwed up beef stew so many years ago, but because I learned from a mistake and now could replicate a meal that was awesome for almost anyone.
My point today is simple. Show me someone who has not failed, and I will show you someone that doesn’t know very much. Without failure the chances of success are slim, and without failure how can we find our way to success. So many people look at failure and think that it is just a horrible thing to be avoided at all costs. I look at failure and realize that I have learned my best lessons from failing and will continue to do so until I am no more. For now I’m just going to enjoy my stew and enjoy the new tastes that I made today just by experimenting.
How do you see failure? Do you see failure as something that ruins people or is a step towards success? Can you find your way to better places because of your successes or because of your failures? In the end it is all up to you because we are all on our own journey but I will continue to see failure as a positive stepping stone.
So as the sun sets on another day, I hope you find success today and tomorrow and the next day. I hope your failures are long gone. Mostly I hope you realize how spectacular you are, every day, no matter what.
Sleep sweet, love life, and yum…