Living to see another day means nothing if you did not learn to avoid yesterday's mistakes. -Crow "The Search for Substance" questions the direction of our lives and our motivations. We find that our challenges and opportunities to inspire and to be inspired are limited based on our skewed view of the world. For these reasons, we are on an endless journey in which faith, failure, and incite detour or determine the impact of our presence. The ability to define and catalogue our experiences may grant us enough space to live in our success and build a bridge from who we are to who we want to be. Our flaws create our character and since real life comes with no scripts, the ability to improvise helps us to survive. The moment we identify what we consider substance, then the "when, how and why" we search will forever provide us with answers. It is true that we often create goals based on the things we want to possess in life. Somehow during this process, we find purpose and the adventure solidifies the amount of time we have invested in our own growth. This discovery of who we are and who we can become remains priceless and the true value of failing is found in how we respond. These poems examine how we respond.