The Gift of Failure

 HS #72 2021.7.8

 

The Gift of Failure

 

I took (and passed!) a training course this summer for teaching online classes. Truth be told, this was my third attempt – I failed the first couple of times. The two necessary conditions for a student to succeed are i) a confidence that s/he can succeed, and ii) an appreciation that the material is worth learning.  In my previous attempts, the second was lacking, but I’m looking forward to teaching my newly created online course this coming year, so this time the motivation was there. 

 

As the unfamiliar saying goes, “Anything worth doing is worth failing at.” Think about it – it’s true. If you aren’t failing from time to time, likely you are not taking enough risks. We get stressed too much by failing, but it’s not a big deal. How many times does a child fall when learning to walk? Falling is part of the process of learning to walk. Failing is part of the process of eventual success. Some of my fellow graduating college friends, assiduously applying for jobs, wallpapered their dorm rooms with rejection letters. Only one acceptance is needed.  

 

I remember a TED talk which asked, “If you could design your own life, what kind of life would you choose?” Most choose an inclined straight line – the incline representing continual increase of the good stuff in life. Then they were asked, “Would you play a video game where the task was to roll a ball up an inclined path?” Of course not – How boring! An exciting video game has ups and downs – some of them drastic – and pit falls and traps to add richness and intrigue. Popular video games are those in which it is hard to succeed. Given that we would not choose to play a boring game of easy success, why would we choose to live such a life? 

 

Long ago I heard a retirement talk in which the retiree claimed the Psalmist’s quote, (Psalm 16:6), “The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places . . .“ There is certainly something to be said for a pleasant life with little heartache or turbulence. But, increasingly, I am aware that perhaps the richest lives, like video games, are the ones filled with failures as well as successes. 

 

In fact, richness and failure are two sides of the same coin. When I hear students complain that a teacher is expecting too much or otherwise making it difficult to succeed, I do not get overly concerned. But if a student can’t tell me the instructor’s name, I know that the student has not had a rich educational experience. 

 

Rich educational relationships, as with any other deep relationships, will sometimes lead to angst, anger and other negative emotions. A good teacher promotes  relationship between teacher and students, between students and students, and between students and the course material. At its best, teaching creates a rich stew of relationships – and all of these relationships have the potential to cause discomfort. 

 

But failure not only brings richness, it is only because I have failed to have life go as intended that some good things have happened. I consider myself an amateur racquetball player because, even after playing for 40 years, my best shots are often accidental. That happens when I hit the ball wrong, sending it in an unintended direction, surprising both me and my opponent, thus giving me the point. Similarly, I find that some of the best things that have happened to me in life have also been unintended – nothing I would have chosen, but in hindsight making for a better life. Thus, I also consider myself to be an amateur at living.  

 

Yes, for good or ill, failure is an integral part of life, so we may as well embrace it. Using another sports metaphor, sometimes in pickle ball a hard-to-determine shot is replayed. If the replayed shot is “in”, someone often claims the original shot must have been in.  But I correct them, “No – it must have been “out” – after all, we live in a fallen world.” 

 

We often assume that the world is good and fair, but not the case. Whether we live in a fallen world or just a natural world following the laws of probability, bad things happen more often than good things – failure more often than success.  Come look at my garden if you need proof; I didn’t plant the weeds, but it’s hard to find the peas. Failure is easy. I’ll try again next year.