What is failure?

"I have a dream", Martin Luther King once said that (on 28 August 1963). I have a dream too. Let's call it Dream A. I want to be a professional, world class speaker / trainer that everyone will yearn to listen to, companies would pay to learn for, and competitors would fear to speak to. Still living that dream, I strive hard at working on my speeches in toastmasters. I have improved in my inspirational style of speaking, but I have stagnated in trying to deliver them convincingly. Maybe that needs practice.

Have I failed? Afterall, I have missed the target - that dream of becoming a professional speaker. Yes, a few might say. But I would say NO. Because I am still clinging on to my dream, even though the furthest I have been is to be the President of a Toastmasters Club and a Division Contest's 1st runner-up in Table Topics. That seems quite a distance away from being the best, but I know I have not failed. It is just not the time  for me to attain that dream.

On the other hand, let's compare it to another dream - let's call that Dream B. If I have dreamt to be a confident speaker who can hold the butterflies in my stomach for 2 minutes, I would have said that I have attained success. Because I have achieved my 'dream'. However, isn't that too lowly to be even considered a 'dream'? And what would I have done after achieving it? Rest on the laurels of having achieved that dream? Maybe I would have, but then I have faltered big-time. Because that is failure. I have set my sights too low.

Comparing Dream A with Dream B, even if I had failed to achieve my earlier dream, i.e. Dream A, I would have succeeded in many more ways than the latter, i.e. Dream B, for it has been set too low and way too simplistic.

Failure is not about missing the target, but aiming too low. How true this is.