Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.
Every action or inaction is a mark upon the world. When a man failed to order or rather did not allow the rescue of his fellow countrymen in Benghazi did that man lack commitment? Or was he being too patient, so patient that their murders resulted from his failure to act? Act, then speak -- or act and speak not. Words are words and like pure water sweeet they can pour out of the nastiest faucets at times.