Why Failure is a Viable Option

Author’s Note: I’m doing a little post swapping. How naughty.

All is not well. Everything will not be okay. This is not going to be easy.

Such things are hard to say and even harder to accept, especially when you’ve been inundated with messages to the contrary.

The Pressure of Positive Thinking

Keep your chin up. Think positive. Press onward. Never let them see you sweat. Over and over we’re told these things.

But we do sweat and sometimes people see us do it. We can’t always find the strength to press on. Our thoughts turn negative and our chins get heavy and when they do we feel guilty because we think we’ve somehow betrayed ourselves and those who depend on us.

This is too bad. It’s hard enough being human without also being ashamed of it.

Lean, Mean, Dehumanized Machines

There seems to be a market for products that promise to dehumanize us, to turn us all into machines: creative, productive, sexually attractive, fat burning, muscle building, goal setting, ceiling breaking, money making, quick learning, fast healing, world transcending dynamos that never skip a beat, never break down, never fail.

But despite all their promises, we end up failing anyway, because we’re not machines and never will be. We’re human, an imperfect thing to be in an equally imperfect world. Failure is the norm; success is the aberration.

Avoiding the Facts

This is the reality we don’t want to face, so sometimes we don’t try because trying wakes us up to the fact that life seldom goes as planned, and we’d rather not deal with that inconvenient truth.

So we buy another book, attend another workshop, or invest in another ideology that promises us the moon. We sink into addictions that distract us from our pain. We numb ourselves and dumb ourselves and wonder where the time went.

If this all sounds rather grim to you, then we’re in agreement. I think it’s a terrible way to live, and I really ought to know. I tried it for years.

Facing the Truth

But I’ve also come to believe there’s another way, one that doesn’t always get the respect I believe it deserves. I’d call that way reality.

For some of us, reality can be a dirty word. It drums up painful memories of being told to get real by people who actually just wanted us to shut up, sit down, and give in.

I’m not suggesting you do any of those things.

Instead, I’m suggesting you get real about the challenges that come with being human, accept them, perhaps even embrace them, and get on with what it is you intend to do anyway. That, to me, is the real hero’s journey, one in which you see the world as it is, imagine what it could be, and do what you can to enact your vision, all the while acknowledging that you might not succeed.

For the mature human being, failure is always an option.

If it isn’t, we wind up doing one of two things: 1) setting ourselves up for a crash by deluding ourselves with magical thinking, failing to consider the obstacles and problems we must face, or 2) paralyzing ourselves because we dare not make a move for fear of getting less than what we hope for.

Reaping the Rewards

But if we can learn to accept failure as a viable option, something unexpected begins to happen. We start gaining a sense of freedom because we slowly begin to realize it’s okay to be human. We don’t have to be machines. We don’t have to be ashamed. We don’t have to ask forgiveness. We just have to do our best, even when our best is less than ideal.

And here’s the truly incredible and somewhat counter-intuitive outcome of accepting, even expecting, and being willing to experience failure. It makes success possible.

History, as we were taught it, goes something like this. On this day, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, and, on that day, Orville and Wilbur took to the sky. But what our history books don’t often mention are the six-thousand failed attempts that preceded Edison’s breakthrough and the countless days those two brothers spent firmly on the ground.

They also fail to mention all the people who came before them, the ones who made their own discoveries of the way things work and the way they don’t, the ones who laid the groundwork for progress but never lived to see it, the ones whose shoulders we all stand on in order to see farther than we otherwise could. Those people didn’t make the history books, but their contributions made the stories in those books possible.

By being willing to fail, you and I can make success possible, too. We just can’t guarantee it, because, once again, we’re human.

Permitting Ourselves to Be Human

If I have one goal in writing it is to give you, as well as myself, permission to be just that: human. Of course, you’ll have to give yourself permission too. I just wanted to get the ball rolling.