I'm such a loser

Last night I watched as one of my favorite magicians/illusionists/artists/wackos of all time attempted a stunt that no one ever would have thought possible. David Blaine has made his living testing his endurance with tasks that only crazy people would attempt. Last night he attempted to hold his breath for nine minutes while shackled underwater after he had already been underwater for seven days. He only made it a little over 7 minutes before he had to be rescued. Now, my point is not to talk about how crazy David Blaine is or why he does the things he does, but to analyze whether or not he is a failure.
There appears to be a fine line between being a success and a failure. Sometimes, success slips from our grasp through our own inadvertence or laziness. Sometimes it eludes us because of factors beyond our power. These moments happen to all of us throughout our lives. For whatever reason, sometimes we slide to the wrong side of that fine line. When that happens, the world calls us failures. Look at Bode, Miller, the skier. Coming in as the top skier in the world, he was expected to win multiple gold medals and ended up getting none. He was labeled as a failure and ridiculed by the media even though he constantly explained that he had done his best and that was what was important to him.
I don't honestly consider myself to be a lazy person even though to some it may appear that way. In truth, I have a fear of committing myself to do something and then failing. For that reason, I don't always put all the effort I can into my tasks because then I can justify my failure to myself. However, David Blaine has inspired me to take more risks and to not be so afraid of failure. I haven't heard any post-event interviews with David, but my guess is that he is proud of his failure because he gave it his best shot and stretched himself to the limit. In conclusion, from now on, my heros in life will be losers - the guys who aren't too afraid to take the last shot in a basketball game but end up missing it, the David Blaines of the world. This post is entirely too long so I don't expect anyone to actually read it.