Failure Schmailure

I don't usually resonate with the word failure. Here's some bullet points on why (it's mostly semantics):

• The word comes off static to me. And almost nothing is static, we're always changing, growing, learning, adapting, etc. (ourselves and the things we create and imagine). How can you fail when you aren't really ever done?
• Fear of failure is confusing to me, because most of the time the things people seem consider failures just aren't failures to me. Opportunity to learn and grow and try again or differently now smarter than before, sure!
• Related to the last point- I'm not sure we all have the same definition of failure. But we talk about it so much anyway!
• Similarly, our definition of success is often limited.
• And then another question- is failure for most people about lack of success?  
• The factors for why something we planned occurred differently than we imagined (or failed) are varied and some of them have nothing to do with us and our leadership at all.
• Failure seems to presume that someone is responsible, and that's not always true.

There was a definition of failure that I read earlier and liked and I think it would change a lot of our conversations if we focused on this one instead: "omission of occurance or performance" which I translated in my head as "to not act." To not act or lead or take a stand to me would actually be a failure, and I hope that I fear that kind of failure forever.