Against the Straight and Narrow Path to Success
The fine art of stumbling and fumbling your way into greatness
I was raised — as I suspect many of us were — to believe in the idea of the straight and narrow. Go to school every day, do your homework, go to college, follow the rules, play it safe, work hard, and eventually success will come.
It didn’t quite work that way for me. In fact, if it works that way for anyone, it would be the exception, rather than the rule.
The rule is that the straight and narrow is usually neither straight nor narrow. And inasmuch as the path actually ends up being either straight or narrow, it rarely leads anywhere worth going.
Your Pain is a Gift, if You Accept It
The path that most of us end up on snakes around, breaks off, returns back, has fallen trees on it, and seems to end, yet pick back up again later. And as if that weren’t enough, most of that path hasn’t been prepared beforehand; we have to make it ourselves.
But for those of us who have experienced that journey, and gotten through to the other side, would you have wanted it any other way?
I used to view stumbling as ignoble, but it’s actually one of the most noble things there is. When we stumble, we’re…
