Gift of Failure

So, what do you do when everything in life falls apart? What about those still, small moments when you helplessly watch your dreams shattered by an unexpected calamity? You work hard to make a living for yourself and for your loved ones and then boom! It’s shattered like a bad dream. When you finally come to, you find yourself in brokenness and despair.

I once read that economic hardship happens to most successful people at least once in their lives; those who dedicate their lives to a worthy pursuit can, instantly, find their hearts ripped out by adversity. Suddenly, they find themselves in an abyss of darkness and nakedness, stripped down to nothing!

Perhaps, then, we realise we are not merely what we accumulate or achieve. In such moments, stripped bare, what we are is our essential consciousness, like a disembodied spirit, painfully wondering what to do to alleviate the pain.

“In Him who is the source of my strength, I have strength for everything.”

– Philippians 4:13

In 1974, Carmen Calvanese launched what would grow into a multi-million-dollar real estate enterprise serving the Philadelphia area. After years of navigating economic turbulence and market volatility, he chose to return to academia, pursuing studies in Philosophy and Theology. Over the next twelve years—and after thousands of hours of dedicated study, primarily at La Salle University—Carmen earned a Doctorate in the Philosophy of Theology from the Graduate Theological Foundation. He ultimately shifted his focus from real estate development to education, scholarship, and writing.