I recently read Celebrating Failure on Scribd. Unfortunately it is on the subscription side, so I don’t know how much you will get for free but you can get it very inexpensively on Bn.com and Amazon. There may be other places as well, check Froogle and see.
For most people half way through the book is the key. For those who work or perhaps even aspire to entrepreneurship, then start at chapter 1.
Why I liked it was that it uses lot of the parables from the New Testament as examples of what we do wrong and thus dance with failure. One of my favorites was the parable of the Five Wise and Five Foolish Virgins.
Ten virgins go out with lamps to await the arrival of the
bridegroom - Mt 25:1-4
a. Five foolish virgins take no oil
b. Five wise virgins take extra oil
2. The bridegroom is delayed in his coming - Mt 25:5
3. The bridegroom's arrival is announced, and thewise virgins trim their lamps - Mt 25:6-7
4. The foolish virgins find that their oil is running out - Mt 25:7-9, so they plead with the wise
virgins to share their oil
5. But the wise virgins refuse, saying there is
not enough for all of them, so the foolish virgins go
to get more oil,
6. And then the bridegroom comes
B. THE MEANING OF THE PARABLE...
1. The main message is quite clear, as evident
from: "...the need to being prepared at all times for the coming of the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ."
Well the book makes the analogy that like the Boy Scouts, you should always be prepared for whatever may happen while waiting for Christ and when you don’t, for whatever reason, you are dooming yourself to failure…And blaming the other “guy” in this case, fate, fortune, God, is just perverse.
In my anguish... 