I was watching this documentary about Chadwick Boseman, the legendary man who recently died after a battle with colorectal cancer. He was a hardworking creative who dedicated himself to his art and to making other people’s lives better. At the end of the documentary, it showed him speaking at a commencement address at his alma mater, Howard University, in 2018. His quote there struck a chord with me;
“I don’t know what your future is, but if you are willing to take the harder way, the more complicated one, the one with more failures at first than successes, the one that’s ultimately proven to have more victory, more glory, then you will not regret it. This is your time.” (Chadwick Boseman, 2018)
This struck me as something we should all take to heart. The Robert Frost poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ is taught in every literature class to date, and I think that it’s significant as to why.
The road to success is paved with failures. And failures scare many people away.
Stephen King used to hang his rejection letters on a nail beside his writing desk. It eventually fell off the wall, pulling the plaster with it from the weight of the tiny slips of paper.
Elvis Presley was once told to stop performing, to return to driving trucks for a living.
Claude Monet was once criticized of creating works that looked unfinished, which is actually what coined the term ‘impressionist’.
My point is, these stories go on and on. Just go look up “famous _______ rejections” and lets the results speak for themselves.
Do not be afraid to fail.
Seek it out.
Fall on your face.
Just get back up and keep walking that path.