But failure has another side to it, one for which celebration does not come easily. While I do agree that important lessons abide in failure and that failure affords us invaluable life experience, I also wonder why, then, is it so difficult to admit failure? If failure is but a pathway to success, why not own it as such? Because failure is more than a stepping stone; it is bigger than a means to a better end. And it is that aspect of failure I want to look at today.
We sometimes define failure as the opposite of success. Failure means to fall short of our objectives, our goals, and success means to meet or exceed them. According to this definition, whether we consider ourselves as succeeding or failing often depends upon the objectives we set. This is problematic. Who does the goal setting? Who defines the desirable objectives? J.K. Rowling, in a Commencement Address to graduates of Harvard University some years ago, noted that "Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it." What are some of the criteria society uses to measure success and failure? Money
Secondly, our own personal expectations blend with those of society in defining our failure and success. I went to graduate school to study Greek and Roman civilizations. I wrote a thesis on pots from the 7th century before the common era. Why? Because I loved the subject. And because I expected to get a job in the field. That's what you do, isn't it? You go to school, you jump through all the hoops, you get the degree, the license, the certification, the stamp of approval, and then you get a job in your field. That's success. Except I didn't. Get the job. I started to look for teaching positions before I finished my dissertation. I did not know that my timing was bad. Lots of people get as far as I did, that is, complete their course work and begin to write their dissertation and lots of people drift away before they finish. Lots of people. Colleges do not want to hire those who have not received the degree. So that first time around I did not find any teaching positions. Now I did go home and complete the dissertation and I do have the degree. I could have tried to find work again the following year. My timing would have been better. But I did not do that. Instead I graduated and I left the field. Why? Because I sensed that a life spent with ancient Greek and Roman civilizations was not for me. I know now and I knew then that my decision was the right one for me. But I felt like a failure and I felt that way for years. The world's definition of success was to finish the degree and secure a job and devote myself to that which I had prepared myself for. And I bought into that. At the same time though, I carried a more personal definition of success, which was to finish the degree for the love of the subject and then to walk away from the life I couldn't quite belong to. I was caught between conflicting objectives and I felt like a failure. ". . . we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it." Have you ever been caught between what your family, or teachers, or bosses, or society would define as success and failure and what you would want to define as success and failure?
My experience in graduate school is not a failure that I celebrate. But it leads me to look at the part expectations play in failure, and success. Our expectations that we will, or will not, meet the goals and objectives are often the defining factors in determining success or failure. Think of the Olympics. If the top US speed skater, Apolo Ohno, does not win medals, his Olympic performance becomes a failure. However, if the speed skater from Greece, (if there is one), simply makes it through one race, his Olympic performance becomes a success. We expect more from Ohno so we set higher goals for him, thereby raising the failure-success stakes. Expectations lead to goals and objectives. We have seen how goals and objectives can influence our perceptions. Expectations can as well. When an outcome is not what we wanted, it can be useful to take a look at the expectations we brought into it.
Expectations lead us to frame things in certain ways that indicate success or failure. Think of the Academy Awards. Meryl Streep has more acting nominations than anyone else in the Academy history. Success, right? She also has won the award itself only twice, which means that she has more losses than any other actor in the Academy history. Failure? Think of baseball. An above average hitter gets a hit only three times in ten at-bats and that is success.. If we reframe this and say that he/she makes an out seven out of ten times at bat, that sounds like failure. What we expect leads us to set the goals and objectives and what we expect is key to how we look at things, how we frame the success or failure of anything we do.
The failures that we don't celebrate are the ones in which we did not live up to our own, or others', expectations. Some expectations are unrealistic from the start. In those cases we can set ourselves up for failure. Other expectations, though, can be met, yet for one reason or another we do not. Those kinds of unmet expectations lead us to disappointment, in ourselves and in others. Has it happened that you did not meet expectations and, in not meeting them, felt like a failure? I am most interested in how we emerge from those failures of expectation. Not all failure is transformational. Not all failure provides a learning experience leading to success. Again, J.K. Rowling: "So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew. Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality."
How do we emerge through this kind of failure? The kind that only seems to point to uncertainty? The kind whose lessons remain unclear? Have you known that aspect of failure?Leaving the field of classics led me to work for Tiffany & Co. and then for the Social Security Administration. I had no particular path for my life and those years felt a bit aimless, like I was waiting for something else to come along and I didn't even know where to look. Was I a failure? I don't know if that is even the question anymore. My expectations did not come to pass; I did not achieve my goals. But I chose not to pursue them further and I needed to own my choices and then forgive myself for them. I needed to let go of societal definitions of success and failure and trust in my own understandings of what they meant for me. What I learned about failure is that it really helps to know we are not alone in experiencing it. Other people have not reached their objectives; other people have not lived up to expectations. J.K. Rowling: "You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all " in which case, you fail by default."
It helps when other people talk about their failures. Not as the path to their success, but the genuine disappointments. Not to get stuck in them; not to blame others for what happened, but simply to tell their stories. Our lives are filled with successes and failures. When we share our stories not only do we gain the perspective that such happens to many of us, but we also learn what they did about it; how they carried on. Plutarch said "What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality." I believe that, which is why it helps me to hear about what others have done with their failures. Failure and success lie on the same continuum and we are always located somewhere on that continuum. There is no absolute success; no absolute failure. Our lives constantly move between them.
After I completed graduate school, it took a while, but I began to set new priorities. I had no identifiable goals for a while and I did not know what to expect, but I could identify what I liked and did not like. I left Tiffany & Co because the I was not happy with the work and my happiness was important. I was happy with Social Security, but I left for a greater satisfaction: taking care of Matthew, who was just a baby. That I was even able to make that choice was due to the love and support of my family. Again, I still had no goals or expectations, but I could recognize what gave me satisfaction. I remembered that I liked to teach and found a way to teach college as an adjunct professor. I joined a UU congregation. I became involved in it. I recognized a calling to ministry. I emerged from the failure of my first career by listening to myself. By forgiving myself. By recognizing what was important to me. By remembering that I knew, even back then, that the academic life was not for me. By learning to trust what I knew and staying open to learning more. I also emerged through the help of others.
J.K. Rowling: "So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. . . . Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies. The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. . . . Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes." Mostly we do not speak of failure, of disappointments, of unmet expectations. Perhaps we cannot show that much vulnerability. Perhaps we fear losing what we have if we expose our failures. Perhaps we think others will not understand or forgive, but instead judge us. Perhaps we cannot forgive ourselves for failing. John Stanko, on his website stankomondaymemo.com, refers to Thomas Merton's book, New Seeds of Contemplation, in which Merton, the Christian contemplative, theologian, mystic, writer, wonders whether "we still have a basically superstitious tendency to associate failure with dishonesty and guilt—failure being interpreted as 'punishment.' Even if a man, (a person), starts out with good intentions, if he (she) fails we tend to think he (she) was somehow 'at fault.' If he (she) was not guilty, he (she) was least "wrong." And "being wrong" is something we have not yet learned to face with equanimity and understanding. We either condemn it with god-like disdain or forgive it with god-like condescension. We do not manage to accept it with human compassion, humility and identification. . . . Merton said that failure to face my own humanity causes me not to accept the humanity of others. Failure is part of being human."
My message is this:
Failure is a part of being human. It comes to all of us. Sometimes it points us to greater success; sometimes it only contains disappointment. Through failure we come to know something of the grace and love that exist in the world and we become more able to access them and share them with others, not from a position of superiority, but from a position of identification. Emerging from failure, from unrealized goals and objectives, unmet expectations, means emerging with a clearer sense of who we are, what we want and need, and what our capacity is. It means emerging with a greater ability to be ourselves in the world.
So remember a time that you failed. What happened? How did you feel? Who helped you? What did you learn? How have you changed? May it be so.
As meditation
Closing words: John Brigham
Go your ways, knowing not the answers to all things, yet seeking always the answer to one more thing than you already know.