“Anything worth succeeding in, is worth failing in.”
~by Edison?
That’s a little bit like presenting your WW Fenn. Some of you gifted with great recall will present a flawless version of your poem or passage. Some of you who have recited your piece many times over with nary a stumble in your room, in the car on the way to school, or even just before you get on stage–but will blank out, stumble, and stammer through those same words you thought you knew and knew by heart twenty times already–only to have those same words fail you in the heat of the moment.
…but though the words may fail you, you have not failed. The only way you could possibly fail is not to try to succeed, and from what I have seen so far almost all of you are trying to succeed, and in the end that is all that really matters, for in the end I always hear Thoreau’s words ringing in my head: “Do not measure a man by what he is, but by what he aspires to be.”
Always be able to say, “At least I tried…”