Failure

What is it good for? Absolutely. .. something?

Photo by Mike Kienle on Unsplash

I was talking with someone over the summer, both of us in our 30s reflecting on our lives like a couple of old souls.  We swapped stories about where we had been and all the bumps and wrong turns that we encountered along the way.  At some point in the conversation, we both had the same observation: we wish someone had told us earlier in life that it was OK to fail.

It’s not that I was ever told to avoid failure at all costs by anyone in particular and I’m sure he would have said the same.  To be sure, oftentimes we were told it’s not the failure that counts but rather how we respond or something similar.  However, the general tenor while growing up was that success was valued and failure was to be avoided.  Get good grades, find a well-paying, respectable job, win trophies and awards, and so on.  It was implied that achieving–in whatever form it came–was our raison d’etre.  If you came up short, try harder next time.  

I’m not sure how our society came to be this way–It’s possible that this is a uniquely American attitude–but you feel it everywhere if you live here.  We idolize the rich and famous, exalt champions, and hold people on a pedestal for achieving a variety of feats.  Those who finish second are quickly forgotten and left on the trash heap of history.

If you went to Catholic school, failure carried mortal consequences.  Not only were you judged on how well you performed academically, but you faced a long list of behaviors that were either frowned upon at best or considered on the pathway to Hell at worst.  Such sins came with a healthy dose of shame and sinners were urged to repent their ways.

This is all not to say that success is bad or that it should be avoided.  No, that's not it.  The real point is that failure shouldn’t be seen as some disgrace for which we feel ashamed.  By treating it as such, we’re less likely to explore various pursuits that could enrich our lives.  We shouldn’t judge those who try something and come up short, for no one is perfect and it’s a common experience to get things wrong, especially when it is something new to us.

Not all parts of society treat failure like this.  The start-up community is an example where failure is expected.  Not many entrepreneurs hit a home run in their first business.  Almost none of them do.  So, the mentality is that you get out there, try to build something, and if you don’t, you learn from your mistakes and try something new.  To say that failure is celebrated may be overstating it, but it is embraced in a way few other communities do.

Such a mentality we could adopt for other parts of life.  When I reflect back on my life, some of my greatest leaps in personal development came when I experienced what many would consider failure.  

College.  College is a good example where it felt like a series of failures at the time, but really, I learned a lot about myself and grew quite a bit.

For example, I entered the first year as a Computer Science major because I liked video games and wanted to make them.  I know, typical teenager dream.  On the first day of class, the professor assigned a “simple” coding project for homework.  I had almost no programming experience, so I walked out of the classroom and immediately dropped the course.  For some reason, I considered Art as my next major even though I, again, had no real art experience.  Fortunately, the art department sniffed that out and talked me out of joining them, and eventually I landed in International Studies, where I belonged.   

I also worked a variety of different jobs ranging from grounds crew to restaurants to clerking at a law firm (and now, hey, I’m a lawyer).  At one point, I really thought I wanted to pursue the culinary world until a real chef–as in, fancy steakhouse kind of chef–talked me out of it because, among other things, you miss many fun life events as you work nights and weekends.  I also tried writing music and even recorded a demo to pass out to different bars and venues so I could land a gig.  No one had the heart to tell me at the time, but my singing sucked.  It still does.  

If we’re being real, learning about alcohol and. . . other forms of recreation involved a series of failures, too.  I’m sure that’s a universal experience for anyone figuring out their limits and what jives for them.  

Along the way, a lot of this can be pretty painful.  But if you take it all as part of your growth and learning, you can come out on the other end in a pretty good place.  They say that the worst thing you can do with a mistake is not learn from it.  That’s what this is all about: not being too hard on yourself or others when we all make mistakes or fail.  It’s all part of the experience.  Growing through failure often seems like addition by subtraction as you find out what doesn’t work for you or what you should avoid going forward.

This is not all to say that we should seek out failure, just don’t be afraid of it, at least in many contexts.  If you’re seeking failure that brings suffering, that’s basically masochism–we don’t want that.  And there are risk considerations, we don’t want to be reckless either.  We shouldn’t start jumping across rooftops because we saw someone doing it on the internet and it looked cool.  Failure in that venture could be fatal.  There is some level of discretion here.

If we change our mindset on failure for ourselves and others, we’ll avoid a lot of anguish for everyone.  For often, if we really think about most dilemmas, what’s the worst that could happen if we get it wrong?  It’s usually not as bad as we play it up in our minds.