Tao Te Ching – Chapter Seventy-Nine
Written by Lao-tzu – From a translation by S. Mitchell
Failure is an opportunity.
If you blame someone else,
there is no end to the blame.
Therefore the Master,
fulfils her own obligations,
and corrects her own mistakes.
She does what she needs to do,
and demands nothing of others.
How I Read This Chapter
Failure is not the end,
it is the opening.
Blame is a trap without a bottom.
Step into it,
and you will never stop falling.
The wise take ownership:
of their part,
their duties,
their mistakes.
They act without resentment.
They release the need to control or demand.
They stand in truth,
and in doing so,
they are free.
What This Means To Me
In my drinking days, failure felt like the worst thing that could happen. I ran from it, denied it, covered it up. If something went wrong, I became an expert in finding someone – or something – else to point to. I believed that if I admitted fault, I’d lose all my worth.
The irony is that this constant blame and denial only trapped me deeper in shame. I never learned from my mistakes, because I never owned them. I never truly moved forward.
Recovery changed my relationship with failure. Now, when I read “Failure is an opportunity,” I hear hope. The opportunity is not just to try again – it’s to grow, to see myself clearly, to change direction if needed. Some of my most important turning points have come dressed as failures: challenges that taught me the depth of my powerlessness, amends for broken relationships that revealed patterns I had to address, moments of humiliation that cracked my pride open so humility could enter.
Blame keeps the wound open. It focuses my attention outward, away from the only place I can make real change – myself. That’s why the Master “fulfils her own obligations and corrects her own mistakes.” She doesn’t wait for others to change first. She does what is hers to do, and lets go of the rest.
This mirrors Step Ten: “Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.” That daily self-examination isn’t about beating myself up – it’s about staying clean on the inside. When I admit my wrongs quickly, they don’t get the chance to fester into resentment or self-pity.
“She does what she needs to do and demands nothing of others.” That’s freedom right there. It means I can live in alignment without holding anyone else hostage to my expectations. I can apologise without demanding an apology in return. I can serve without waiting for gratitude. I can live my amends without needing to control the outcome.
In recovery, I’ve learned that responsibility is not a burden – it’s a path to peace. When I own my side of the street, keep it clean, and leave the rest to God, I stay free.
And in that freedom, even failure becomes a friend.
