Around my house there is no shortage of cartoons. I live with an awesome two year old. He loves Toy Story, Monster’s Inc., Robots, and many others. His current favorite is Meet the Robinsons. I hadn’t seen this one until a few months back. It is one of the best kids movies I have seen in a long time.
There is a scene in the movie where the main character, Louis, messes up trying to fix a peanut butter and jelly sandwich maker. PB&J goes everywhere. He is devastated and starts apologizing to everyone around. They look puzzled at him and then congratulate him for his failure. One character tells him, “From failure we learn. From success…not so much.” He is then introduced to the motto Keep Moving Forward. It is a great scene.
I love it when there are adult sized lessons built into the kids stories. Louis thought that failure was the end and that he would continue to be a failed inventor. He later finds out that he is the one that invented the future he sees around him. He is not a failure at all, because he didn’t let himself be. He kept creating and looking for new ways to do things. He kept moving forward with his dreams.
There is a great quote from Walt Disney at the end of the movie. I shared it in an earlier post, but it is worth sharing again:
Around here, however, we don’t look backwards very long. We keep moving forward, opening new doors and doing new things, because we are curious…and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.
This is a note of encouragement this evening. You have dreams inside of you. You may have failed a time or two, but it just might be the time to pick back up and try again. What are they? Why have you put them on hold? Have you been looking backward too long and not been able to focus on what is ahead? You can do it.
Don’t be afraid of failure. That will happen from time to time. The main fear I have of failure is that I won’t learn the lessons and have to do it all over again. I want to learn. I want to grow. Years from now I want to know that I gave it all I could. It is hard to do that when you are looking back too long. Failure is only permanent if you let it be.
David Willis 