What happens when you fail?

In college I did really badly on a midterm. I was so embarrassed because it was a subject I was great at, and passionate about, so I went back to the professor and asked for a re-do. I made the case that I had just come back from a year abroad and hadn’t really gotten back into the groove of things. I was rusty. He knew my standard (I had taken two classes with him previously) and knew that it was higher than this. He gave me my re-do and I did great. Of course he couldn’t completely ignore the midterm I’d tanked, so he put both of them together and came up with a new and improved grade. Then, when my final came around, I completely blew it. I procrastinated until the last second and then tried to stay up all night gathering the whole course’s information into one paper (as I usually do). I was overconfident and thought that I could make magic happen. As you can expect I failed. I got a D. I didn’t fail the class, but I should have. The professor gave me a nasty grade for attendance (although there was nothing wrong with my attendance) presumably so it would bring my average down and I would learn my lesson. But I didn’t learn my lesson. Or at least I didn’t learn it then. I ended up missing the last class where we tie all of the newly won knowledge together because I was busy trying to get my paper done on time. It sucked. This incident has stayed with me my whole life. It is the story I tell in job interviews when they ask me to tell them about a failure in my life and how I overcame it. It is probably the beginning of my personal undoing. Because the truth is, contrary to what I was propagating, I never overcame it. The shame of how badly I messed up after having been given a second chance never went away. I know it may seem silly, but to me that incident was about more than just a grade, it was about the trust a human being put into me to act a certain way and me disappointing that trust. And it is something I have unfortunately done time and time again since.   

What do we do when we don’t learn?

There is a wealth of literature about failing. There is Denzel Washington’s talk about falling forwards and Steve Job’s “you can only connect the dots looking back” (actually I’m not sure that second one is about failure), there are TED talks, podcasts and interviews given by famous entrepreneurs and actors about how they overcame the hardships in their life. There are songs, speeches, poems and quotes, all expounding the subject of human error. Suffice it to say, if you have failed, there are at least 1000 people out there who will tell you how good that is and that this is how we learn. But what about those incidents where we don’t learn? What about those times we have gotten blackout drunk, lost our stuff, split our head open, only to go back and drink again the next day? What about those breakups where we tell ourselves it’s the last time only to find ourselves back with that person a month later? Is there any way to tell which lesson sticks?

“Lau damiri mesh mertah tebaa failure,” a friend of mine commented on the topic. “Mesh kol haga ma7asaletsh 3ala mazagy teb2a failure, but it makes a difference if I feel I didn’t do my best or give it my all”. Until I had begun this conversation with her I didn’t even realize that failure needed to be defined, that there is a relative aspect to failure. I thought “failure” was just a universal concept, one that we all understood because we had all at some point failed. But the truth is that what I consider “failure” is not what you consider failure. Failure is deeply personal, evidenced by the fact that I could barely get anyone to comment on this topic while conducting my research. “Ta3alili ba3d ma el banat yemsho,” my dad responded, not wanting to be put on the spot in front of guests when asked about a failure in his life. His theory was that to describe failure you need to define what success is. As failure is in opposition to success, you get one by knowing its counterpart. I liked the sentiment, but that still left us with a very personal definition of “failure” (and success). One makes you feel bad, while the other makes you feel good.

I know that many of you probably suffer from a fear of failure. I think on some level most human beings do. If I had to wager, I would say it is perhaps the most widespread form of fear there is. The funny thing is that we all know the antidote to this fear: face the fear and do it anyway. I can guarantee you that even a child could comprehend that it’s better to go through the hard thing than to keep circumventing it ad infinitum. But we don’t. Or at least, many of us don’t. So what makes a failure? And when does it make you change?

My mom is a PHD student. When asked about her greatest failure she cites the first time she attempted to go for her doctorate. She explains how she couldn’t see it through for personal reasons and that this failure stayed with her all her life until she reapplied again. Failure was in the giving up, more so than anything. “My colleagues got stuff published and I didn’t. In the rat race that is life they went ahead of me. My failure became even more real because I lagged behind,” she explains. Failure is relative, sometimes, literally. Even now, as she is doing it the second time round, she refuses to say that she’s actively studying for fear it might not continue. But she learned from it. Now, she is doubly careful about her work. She spends hours debating ever paragraph and days working on a page. She is conscientious because she knows it counts and that this is her second chance

My biggest failure is still in the making. It creeps up on me most days at moments where I least expect it. After suffering from a near death experience I made all kinds of promises to myself as to what my life would be.I took stalk of my whole life and decided on certain key values according to which I would live. I promised myself I would give more. I promised myself that I would spend more time with my family and loved ones. I promised myself that I would prioritize health above all else. But I have failed at most of these points. Every day I stray a little bit more from the mark I am trying to reach, and whether that is by laziness or a purposeful decision it is hard for me to tell. Failure has become a permanent sour taste in my mouth, one I experience most days (knowingly or unknowingly).

Recently I watched a TED talk on “how to be happy every day”. The thesis was that if we give a little every day we are creating the seeds for a lifetime of happiness. In the talk the speaker and mother explains how she got her son to give to others every day for 365 days and how it changed their life and the lives of others around them, starting a movement of sorts under the title 365give. The talk didn’t move me much, but the concept seemed monumental to me. How would my life shift if I could get myself to give to others 365 days in a year? Was the way out of my failure the remedy I was actively avoiding?

Failure is a hard topic to broach. What makes us fail is so deeply entrenched in our own personal view of success and regret. To learn from it, we need to let it affect us and shake us to our core. Personally, I don’t know what else to say about this topic. You could say I have failed at failure. In truth though I want to talk about a cousin of failure and that is forgiveness. If we are to live true and meaningful lives we must be able to forgive ourselves our failures and move on. We must be strong enough to look failure in the eye and do it anyway. We must conquer our failures. Or, as Samuel Beckett and a friend of mine put it (quoting him):

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better”.

Or, as my brother put it:

“Failure is giving up. If you never give up, you never fail”.

Unfailingly yours,

Girl With One Earring