On failure – or not

People may, and often do, choose to deny just about anything they find uncomfortable or inconvenient to the way they want to live. Ergo, we have climate-change deniers. We have – though I’ve never understood how this benefited them – flat-earthers. We have people who do not believe that mental health disorders are real.

Whatever extraordinary logic brought them to these perceptions, here they are and we have to live with them.

I too have an odd denial: I do not believe in failure.

I know that very often we do not achieve what we set out to do. I know we don’t always get what we want, or things don’t turn out as we’d like.

I know all these things happen to me every day and twice on a Sunday.

That said, while I feel disappointment, rage, sadness, more disappointment, and (blick) even embarrassment, I refuse to get out my Sharpie and label the moment “failure.”

The word sits badly with me. It’s a sinking, nausea-inducing, curl-up-and-die feeling. And I’m not having it.

It’s the word. The label. The brand, if you will. I don’t like what it makes people feel and think of themselves. It’s a bad word. There are words we don’t print in things like newspapers because they are considered offensive and coarse.

I can’t think of one of them that can do as much damage as calling someone a failure. Not one of them can be as debilitating as calling yourself a failure.

So don’t do it.

I understand that not getting The Thing – the boy, the girl, the job, the grade, the medal, the praise, the prize – can sometimes be a positive thing. It can push us to try harder or change direction. And that which keeps us dynamic is good, even when it’s disguised as bad or painful.

These painful learning moments (that’s what they’re called now, right?), useful as they may turn out to be, do not really get to the heart of my rejection of failure.

So what is it? Why is it that I don’t quite see failure simply as what it’s supposed to be?

What I’ve come up with has to do with expectations and likelihood. For instance, someone says their marriage has failed and all I can think is: Was it a test? Is there a measure of its success? Even if the partners go their separate ways, is that not better than being in something that doesn’t work?

The feelings associated with a marriage that didn’t get to happily-ever-after are much more complex than the previous paragraph suggests. I know that. I don’t not know that. But I still don’t consider it a failed endeavour.

Maybe you had an expectation that you and the person you married would be together always. But, if you consider many, many things, was it likely?

I’m not holding marriage up as the failure bobolee. Swap it out for expectations germane to your career, friendships, life in general.

I’m rejecting failure from the ground up. We tell absurdly young children that they have failed an important exam that affects the rest of their lives when what we should be looking at is the way in which we accept poorly designed systems of education evaluation.

Again (though, to be fair, the above is pretty specific), not holding this up for a special beating. Again, swap the exam for other pieces of your life and try to see how they are measured, and by whose measure, and by what authority.

I’ve discovered I’m more interested in the fear of failure – atychiphobia – than in my personal quarrel with a word/concept that isn’t fighting back.

Atychiphobia stops you from even trying to do the things. It is a great facilitator of procrastination. It leads to depression and low self-esteem. It makes it hard for you to accept constructive criticism or accept help.

And maybe that’s worth pausing to look at – the thing about constructive criticism and help. I think if I can lean into both of those, I can always try to make things better. And if I can try – if, hand to God – I know I tried, then I may not get what I want, but I didn’t fail.

It appears I’m asking others to set aside the hundreds of articles and books they’ve read on coping with failure and, instead, rethink what failure is. Or if it is.

This smacks of hubris. I think I’m ok with that. Because, you see, I tried.

Remember to talk to your doctor or therapist if you want to know more about what you read here. In many cases, there’s no single solution or diagnosis to a mental health concern. Many people suffer from more than one condition.