Failure?

What makes a failure?

What are the criterion?

Is it the absence of success?

Yes most likely,

But then what makes success?

Is it the absence of failure?

Yes most likely,

A circle my thoughts have sent me through.

Is success the fullness that comes with its voids?

Is failure the needs that come with the lack?

A Vision I had.

About a man who after many years of hard work was to make his breakthrough

But fate's fiddle thumbs dabbled with his string,

As the one who gave him life was to have hers taken,

A choice he had,

One between his beginnings, and another his desired end,

He chose His beginnings,

He looked back,

She was spared, but his future was not,

A wave of disaster even Neptune could not hope to tame swept upon him through regret,

And shame at what he felt soon followed.

His heart which chose of purity was guilt ridden,

And he wished he never looked back.

He sought a dream but unlike before he knew this one would never come true,

An escapism of some sort,

His actions tormented the one he saved,

Guilt and sorrow he brought to her of levels only she knew,

Death found him as he was dreaming,

His surroundings plagued with the smell of it,

His dream gave him an escape but at a cost,

In there he was able to forget about what he had lost,

If only he had known

It also made him forget all he already had,

Death claimed him at last

And soon the one he chose to live came after him.

Was he a failure?

Perhaps

After All, he did not fulfill his dreams and died in regret

Then his choice must have been the wrong one I thought to myself.

Then I had another vision

One where he had chosen his future,

And unlike the former

He did not look back.

He accomplished his dream

And had what he wanted

But in gaining what he wanted

He lost what he had,

A deep spiral he went under again

wishing he could choose over,

Wishing he had looked back,

But it was too late,

After many years

He desired to dream,

To dream about a possibility where he looked back,

In hopes that he could dream of what he wanted back

But in doing so he could never fill the hole it left

Death found him as he was dreaming,

His surroundings plagued of it,

He was claimed soon

And he forever wished he could go after the one he abandoned many years ago.

Was he a failure?

Perhaps

Which would have been the right choice then I thought to myself?

Was he doomed to damnation?

Was there ever a right choice?

And then I realized

It was never the choice that was the issue,

It was how he dealt with it.

When he looked back

He regretted his decisions and death claimed him.

When he looked forward,

He regretted his decision and death claimed him.

The problem was never what choice he made,

The problem was that regardless of his decision

He was not willing to live with the consequences

Rather

He never considered the consequences.

A failure was simply someone unable to understand and live with the results of their choices.

Regardless of whether the man looked back or forward.

He was a failure.

To be continued....