There's only one way to fail - that's to quit trying. 

Read any stories about truly successful people, and you'll read about a series of failures, until...

"We'll cross that bridge when we skim beneath it."

I find myself waiting on your sweet advice
from down here somewhere south of paradise
and won't it be so very nice
to finally know where I stand

I sit here in the afternoons
trying to strum or finger pick a better tune
and it won't come no not too soon
I'll finally know who I am

I'm still here, hanging on your prayers
lost to the world, lost to my cares
troubled by what I thought I'd dare
I see myself in what I began
(c) 2013 - Robin Seaver

"and up it went... grace untethered"

the wall he faces seems impenetrable - an event horizon

beyond which nothing is knowable, for here there be dragons, and there, wild beasts...

terra ignota timens nullam requiem

From "The Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius

...as translated by George Long 

From my brother Severus, to love my kin, and to love truth, and to love justice; and through him I learned to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, Brutus; and from him I received the idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed; I learned from him also consistency and undeviating steadiness in my regard for philosophy; and a disposition to do good, and to give to others readily, and to cherish good hopes, and to believe that I am loved by my friends; and in him I observed no concealment of his opinions with respect to those whom he condemned, and that his friends had no need to conjecture what he wished or did not wish, but it was quite plain. 

. . . 

To the gods I am indebted for having good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and friends, nearly everything good. Further, I owe it to the gods that I was not hurried into any offence agai st any of them, though I had a disposition which, if opportunity had offered, might have led me to do something of this kind; but, through their favour, there never was such a concurrence of circumstances as put me to the trial.

--- nicely put, Marcus.