Ssempijja Charles (Charz)

You might have heard the story. The one about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete.

We celebrate it as a symbol of defiance, a testament to the power of a dream against impossible odds. We admire its final, shocking bloom—a splash of impossible colour against a canvas of urban grey. But in our rush to praise the outcome, we miss the entire point of the lesson. We miss the art, the pain, and the wisdom of the process.

The true story of that rose is not one of singular, heroic growth. It is a story of a hundred small deaths. It is a quiet epic of failing, every single day, and choosing to begin again in the morning. This is the lesson we must learn: that growth is not about avoiding the fall, but about mastering the art of failing often.

I had to grow out the concrete
I had to stroll through the trenches

The Unbroken Bloom

We are conditioned to hide our failures. Our digital lives are curated galleries of triumphs, our résumés are highlight reels of success, and our stories are edited to show a clean, upward trajectory. We present ourselves as unbroken blooms, as if we emerged from the soil perfectly formed, without a single torn petal or bent stem. We tell the story of the rose that grew, but we leave out the part about the growing.

This myth creates a paralyzing fear. It frames failure as a final verdict—a sign that the concrete is too strong, that the dream is invalid. We see a setback and believe the journey is over. But the rose on the busy road knows better. Its existence is not a straight line to the sun. It is a chaotic dance of survival and adaptation, a daily negotiation with a world that isn't built for it.

A Daily Death

Imagine that rose, rooted in the unforgiving pavement of a street. Its life is a series of constant, mundane brutalities.

Each stomping foot from an indifferent passerby is a rejection—a critique that bruises, an idea dismissed without a second thought. It is the feeling of being unseen, of your effort being casually crushed by a world too busy to notice.

The dirty water from a puddle, full of city grime, is the unsolicited advice, the negativity, the toxic environment that tries to poison your roots. It’s the voice that whispers you don't belong here, that you're not strong enough, that you should have stayed in the garden where it was safe.

The cold, lonely night is the crushing weight of self-doubt. It is the moment when the sun is gone and you are left alone with your own fragility, wondering if the struggle is worth the effort, if a bloom is even possible.

For the rose, these are not catastrophic, once-in-a-lifetime events. This is just Tuesday. This is the normal weather of an ambitious life. To "die" in this way, every day, is not a sign of weakness. It is the prerequisite for strength.

Bent Stem

The true miracle is not that the rose survives, but that it learns. Each failure is a data point. Each small death is a lesson in the architecture of its own resilience.

A bent stem doesn't just heal; it learns to grow in a new direction, finding an angle that avoids the relentless foot traffic. This is the wisdom of the pivot, the humility to accept that your initial path was wrong and the creativity to find another way toward the light.

The roots pushing deeper into the hairline cracks of the concrete are a search for a more stable foundation. This is what happens when a superficial effort fails. You are forced to go deeper, to understand the fundamentals of your craft, to anchor yourself not in easy soil, but in the hard-won truths you discover through struggle.

Shedding a damaged petal to conserve energy for a new bud is the quiet, painful act of letting go. It is the wisdom of abandoning a project that is no longer serving you, of accepting a loss to free up your resources for a future attempt. It is the autumn of the soul, a necessary shedding to prepare for a new spring.

Growth, in this context, is not an accumulation of successes. It is an accumulation of scars, each one a reminder of a lesson learned, a boundary tested, a limit overcome. The rose doesn't grow strong despite the damage; it grows strong because of it.

We need to stop waiting for the perfect conditions to grow. The fertile garden is a myth. The real world is concrete. It is the indifferent shuffle of feet, the cold nights, and the constant threat of being broken.

So, fail. Fail often. Let your ideas be stomped on. Let your initial attempts be washed away in the grime. Let yourself feel the chill of self-doubt. And then, like the rose, use that data. Find a new angle. Push your roots deeper. Let go of what is broken. Wake up tomorrow and choose to grow again.

Fail often, so that when you finally bloom, you are not just beautiful, but unbreakable.

Currently playing; Trae The Truth in Ibiza