(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Like most people, the highway of my life is strewn with the wreckage of my numerous failures. When I was a younger man, I looked at failure as a matter of disgrace and resented each failure. While I sometimes engaged in the shameful practice of shifting the blame to others, I learned to accept the wisdom of Confucius, namely that when the archer misses the target he should seek the cause within himself. Or, as this is expressed in the West, it is a poor craftsperson who blames his tools.
While I still regard failure as potentially disgraceful and worthy of resentment, I have learned to have a somewhat more developed view of the matter. After all, while I must bear the responsibility for my failures and they are most often entirely my fault, a failure need not be a matter of disgrace. Most obviously, if I have done the best that I could have done and still met with failure, then there is no disgrace in this. No more could have been expected of me, for I did all that I could possibly do. There are, of course, challenges that we face that are beyond us—what matters in such cases is not that we have failed, but that the challenge has been justly and bravely faced. After all, to fail well can be better than to succeed poorly or wickedly. Perhaps it could even be argued that a noble failure is a form of success.
One thing that repeated failures have taught me is that there will be more failures. On the one hand, this view can easily lead to despair: if we can be sure that the road ahead will also be littered with the wreckage of failures, should we not greet this future with tears and lamentations at our fates? On the other hand, this view can lead to confidence and hope: have we not survived the wrecks that litter our pasts? Have we not had victories as well? Surely, there shall be more victories in the future and the failures shall be endured as they have before.
Another thing that my repeated failures have taught me is that failure is just another chance to succeed. For example, when I was in high school, I decided that I wanted to be on a sports team. Since basketball was a prestige sport and I had played before, I have it a try. I was awful and after one of the tryouts, the coach said to me “we have an important position for you. We need a manager.” I said, “Coach, I need to do a sport.” He replied, “Go out for winter track. They have to take everyone.” I went to the track practice the next day, wearing my basketball sneakers.
I found that track had its own tryouts—the coach tested everyone’s abilities to see how well a person could jump, sprint, or throw. It turned out that I could jump seven feet forward from a standing start, but could not long, triple or high jump worth a darn. I was also found to be unsuitable for sprinting, hurdling and throwing. So, I ended up where people without any talent in the prestige events ended up—I was slotted to be a distance runner.
Being in poor shape, the practices were tough. By throwing up, I learned to not eat before I ran. By having my feet torn up and bloodied by the basketball shoes, I learned I needed to get better shoes. I was a poor runner my first season and a poor runner in the spring track season that followed. However, by the time cross country arrived, I could run without throwing up and without bringing shame to my ancestors.
When I went off to college, I stuck with running and went all-conference in cross country. I am still a runner today. Without my failure at basketball, I might have never become a runner—so, I owe my success to that failure.
As a second example, when I was in college I thought that I was a good writer, so I sent off some of my work to a game company. I received a brutal rejection letter in reply. I kept at it, earning a stack of rejection letters. However, one day I got the letter I had been waiting for—my work had been accepted. I did the same thing in philosophy—earning a stack of rejections before earning a publication.
Lest anyone think that I am a Pollyanna, I will say that I have encountered defeats that seem to still remain as failures—aside from the lessons learned from them, of course. But even in those cases, I did succeed at learning to not fail in that way again. Also, I recognize that there can be failures that put an end to all opportunities for success—that is, failures that are complete failures. However, saying “failure is just another opportunity for success, except when it is not” does not have the same appeal as the original.
My 99 Books 99 Cents Kickstarter
It seems that my so-called failures are experiments which allow me to learn my own limits and those of the world and society.
If I once imagined that I could learn to dance salsa and that salsa was the key to seducing women, I learned after a few classes that
I was remarkably ungifted for dancing salsa.
After a short time, I realized that not all women like salsa and that even some of those who do do not consider it to be the most important factor in chosing a mate.
In fact, being clumsy at salsa saved me from the salsa crowd, which I learned with time
are superficial and boring.
Of course, I have to continue do some things, for which I am not gifted, like cooking, but then again, I never imagined that I was a good cook.
All this competition stuff is just another way that the powers-that-be keep us buying and working more than we need to, competing to have a house in the “right” neighborhood (after all, a house is a house) or to win the heart of the “right” woman (generally the one who everyone else wants, but a beauty-queen at age 20 may well turn into a neurotic disaster with the years).
Wisdom seems to dictate that I discover my own limits and those of the world and society and operate within those limits. That way I can make a contribution to others with those talents I have to contribute and avoid unnecessary personal frustrations.
I am presently having to do something which feels like it is killing me. It is not of course doing that, but the dread of failure and the shame of failing due to my own weakness is most unpleasant. if I fail others will suffer so it is not all just me, it is long term too. I am really the ideal person to do this thing I have the knowledge and ability, I can do it well, but I hate it. Why do I hate it? Because I am basically a selfish person I guess, who hates constraint. I would say this is a real failure problem as it ramifies unpleasantly beyond me.
On the other hand I think I may just be suffering with exhaustion for throwing all I have got towards dealing with this. Hopefully at some future date, I shall read this and think, what an idiot. But do you know somehow I like being selfish, it has survival value to it. I suspect there are many of us who do not like to admit to that innate trait.
“I learned to accept the wisdom of Confucius, namely that when the archer misses the target he should seek the cause within himself.”
There is some truth in this, there is also a dangerous problem.
The abuser always wants their victim to take responsibility for their abuse. The wife beater wants his wife to accept the blame for the violence; “look what you made me do!!”. And the bully boy capitalist, who had the good fortune to be born super rich, who turns the lives of thousands of people upside down at the stroke of a pen wants them to “take personal responsibility and care for their lives!”.
If you’re in a fair competition, and you fail, yes you can take responsibility. But if you’re in a rigged competition and you fail – it’s not something you could control. And if you could control it through cheating, or some other underhandness, is that any kind of success.
If somebody shoots me with an arrow, the fault most likely lies with them.
What’s missing here is a metaphysics of success and failure. Happily we don’t have to reinvent the cycle. Anaxagoras has a serviceable theory: the seed of success bears a portion that will become a seed of failure.
How true. Especially for ancient Greeks or all others who strive too much with too little. At least the Greeks figured out that only the dead are truly successful and happy.
Mike LaBossiere,
“If somebody shoots me with an arrow, the fault most likely lies with them.”
A lot of the time success or failure can depend on your ability (or shear luck) in dodging bullets.
The individual can play a great part in their success or failure, but external factors beyond the control of the individual play a major role. And there’s a terrible twist to this. In a healthy society, good people can succeed, in a sick society only the sick can succeed.
Stalin’s Soviet Union is an example of a sick society. And it still hasn’t recovered from his influence, and it may take several generations more before it does. Stalin created a whole hierarchy of rottenness to support him. His underlings were either too stupid to be a threat, or as evil and twisted as him. (Khrushchev is notable in surviving by playing stupid). Under Stalin’s reign the good were either killed or ended up in prison. But the sickness criminalised a whole society.
We’re not living under Stalin, but there’s a good enough chance you will find yourself working in an organisation where there is the same kind of sickness. If you “succeed”, it may be because you are a despicable person, who the environment suits. Or you could be like Khrushchev and having the “skill” of appearing both stupid and useful. Which isn’t really all that admirable either.
Succeeding in a sick society in accord with its sickness would be a failure.
Re: Mike LaBossiere March 18, 2013 at 9:05 pm
“A Failure” does the choice between judging Success or Failure not depend on who is making the judgement? By our standards a reprehensible success maybe. There were many Nazis who were highly successful in what they did but we do not admire or envy or approve such success. I suppose one can succeed in something un wholesome but be rated in our opinion a failure so far as human mercy, compassion and all that is, again in in our opinion, good in a person, are concerned. Perhaps that is what you mean.