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“You must have long range goals to keep you from being frustrated by short range failures.”
–Charles Noble
I remember the first time I decided to make homemade biscuits. I was beyond excited. One of my favorite wedding gifts was from my grandmother; she gave me the rolling pin my great-grandfather made for his new bride. Looking at it filled me with such a sense of love and peace, imagining her using it often to care for her family. Now, I would have the opportunity to do the same.
I carefully measured out the ingredients, watching as the texture changed after every addition, double and triple checking the amounts of baking soda and baking powder. I rolled the dough out before cutting the biscuits and placing them to bake. Anxiously, I waited for them to be finished, imagining my family’s surprise at having fluffy, buttermilk biscuits with dinner.
To this day, I still cannot tell you what went wrong. They were beyond inedible; they were only good as paper weights. I wanted to cry. I threw the entire mess into the trash, cleaned up the kitchen, and popped open a can of store-bought biscuits. I vowed never to attempt these again.
Fortunately, years later, I can tell you that was one promise I never kept. I tried again and again practicing different recipes and techniques until I developed my own method for making homemade biscuits. I refused to let one failure determine the course for how I wanted to take care of my family.
Failure is a reality of life. We are going to attempt many things and we will definitely fail some of them. But, we cannot ever lose sight of our personal goals. Sometimes we may have to reach them differently but we can reach them, as long as we have a plan to push beyond our failures.
