So, I recently screwed up on a job, pretty big. This royal screw-up meant I had to start the assignment - a rather large one - all over again.
The editor that first brought it to my attention was quite civil about the whole situation, advising me by e-mail to kindly "fix this as soon as you can." He didn't have to go all J. Jonah Jameson on me, either, given what a sucker I am for self-flagellation.
"How could I be so stupid, so careless?!" "ME!?" We were talking about a 4,000 to 5,000-word project that would have to be re-done, all because I didn't follow directions more carefully at the outset. And I don't mean paraphrased re-done, but rather, yellin' across the newsroom, "GET ME RE-WRITE(!!!)" re-done.
Fortunately, I'd stumbled across an extremely powerful concept within the past few months for dealing with these kinds of setbacks - and worse. You may be familiar with it - the Law of Polarity. I'll spare you the existential exegesis and get right to the point as far as it concerns failures like mine. It goes, in part:
Within every failure lies the seed of an equal or greater benefit.
Assuming that was true, I began asking, "Ok, how can I turn this around? How can I flip the script on this screw-up? And not just make it right, but be delighted with the outcome?"
This was, of course, after an extended period of beating myself in the head with a sneaker and spitting curses that I shall not repeat, lest this site's readership plummet by 50 percent.
One reason this calamity felt so bad initially, was that it seemed as if all my initial efforts were a waste. Hours of research followed by hours upon hours of writing. We're probably talking 2-3 full working days dedicated to this thing, spread out over a week. And again, no one to blame here but myself.
The project required a series of fitness and health-related articles for the foundation of a well-known athlete's Web site. Let's just say this particular athlete encourages people to "Live Strong," even if they're battling cancer. If I do say so myself, the "botched" articles were none too bad; I just failed to write them in the specified format. Since they were based on popular terms people search for online, someone could probably use them.
And so I figured, "Why not me?" I could have tried to sell them to a magazine or Web site, but I've been making an effort of late to keep ownership of as much of my content as I can afford, rather than go for the quick paycheck.
So I spent an additional, painful two days of my life to re-write the original assignment; and now I'm onto the business of posting the rejected (but good, dagnabbit!) articles to MuscleFoundry.com. My hope and guess is that there will be at least a few among the lot of them that appeal to anyone.
Obviously, this doesn't quite fall under the category of "Tragedy Into Triumph," there was no death, dismemberment or financial loss involved. But it does illustrate the Law of Polarity.
It's not so much a "Gee, let's turn this here lemon into lemonade" dismissal of a bad situation. But rather, a recognition of the potential good, or bad, inherent in any circumstance we might find ourselves in. Like a puzzle, it's up to us to recognize and follow the path to our desired outcome when it presents itself.
Is there an event, health issue, injury, relationship, financial problem or time management situation causing you to pull your hair out? What would happen if you took a step back and tried - really tried - to find something great about it? If you come from a background or career that's especially cynical like mine was, I know this might sound hokey or even fake. But what have you got to lose?
Be strong, live well.
