Text of the meditation
When the soul is most tried, its need is greatest. Do not despair because of failure. From your particular failure there is a special greatness, a peculiar wisdom, to be gained; and no teacher can lead you to that greatness, that wisdom, more surely and swiftly than your experience of failure.
In every mistake you make, in every fall you encounter, there is a lesson of vital import if you will only search it out; and whoever will stoop to discover the good in what appears to be disastrous will rise superior to every event, and will use their failures as winged steeds to bear them to a final and supreme success.
Foolish people blame others for their lapses and sins, but let the truth-lover blame only themselves. Let them acknowledge their complete responsibility for their own conduct. Where temptation is powerful, the greater and more enduring will be the victory.
James Allen (1864–1912), Book of Meditations for Every Day in the Year (1913) – public-domain text, gently modernised.
The original 1913 text is in the public domain.
