Success. Be successful at what you do. The secret to success is. The measure of success. Life is so focused on success and being successful that we forget the lessons learned in failing. If we fail an attempt at anything, we strive harder to succeed. It’s what our society has ingrained in us. What we are taught at school. It is certainly what my parents imparted on me growing up.
Hardly anyone says, go ahead and fail. Don’t worry about the outcome. Try and fail and feel good that you tried. Feel good that you failed. I’m certain I’ve never heard that phrase used as an encouragement or as a support. What about failure as a tool of success? Or rather, what about failure just on it’s own. Not as a measurement of how well or poorly one is doing but rather as a thing that just is.
Grace through failure. Acceptance. An awakening to the way you’re going about things just isn’t working. Stop. Listen. Learn. What are your failures telling you? Last year I spent 6 months on a walk through the land of failure. This is in particular reference to attaining meaningful employment and securing a paycheck. I applied over and over again for jobs I saw posted on the Internet, on job boards and in the paper. Not only did I not get a job, I didn’t get so much as an interview. Me! Who tries and succeeds at pretty much everything I turn my hand to.
I was astonished. I decided that my resume and cover letter needed work. I took workshops on how to write a cover letter and resume that would get attention. I took workshops in how to find work. I rewrote what I had written and I applied for more jobs; jobs that I was certain I was qualified for. Jobs that I knew if I got an interview they would surely hire me on the spot. Again and again I met with failure. I got discouraged. I shook it off. I tried again. Again, success eluded me. I was trying so hard. I was doing what you’re supposed to do, yet I couldn’t seem to get a break. I was sounding like a broken record to my friends. The bright shiny armor of my self-esteem began to tarnish and fade and I began to fade along with it.
I began doing less. It seemed wrong but I was running out of options. I was running out of inspiration. In general comparison to the speed and forward momentum of the working world, I was moving at a snails pace. I began to feel the effects of failure. I got discouraged. I lacked direction. I couldn’t make anything happen and as I watched my bank account diminish, I watched my bills add up. One day, as I looked over the edge of the pit of despair into a dark abyss, I made the conscious decision that I did not want to go down the road of self-pity, but I knew not what to do. And there on the side of a mountain on a winter walk with my faithful K9 companion Angus, I gave up. I relinquished control. I conceded failure. If just for that moment I admitted to myself and to the universe that I really have no idea what to do.
In that single moment I experienced relief like I have seldom known. There was relief from having to try so hard. Relief from not knowing what to do and to not keep blindly charging ahead like I did know what to do, or that I should know what to do. It became clear to me that the way I was going about things no matter how sincerely, or desperate or diligent, my technique just wasn’t working. I bowed to failure.
There is such calm that comes with acceptance, which is tied so closely with failure that it’s hard to separate the two in some cases. The alternative was beating my head against a brick wall, and all I was succeeding at was giving myself a headache. Acceptance of failure gave me a sense of freedom that I hadn’t experienced in some time. It renewed a fresh place inside of me that seemed to quietly fill with hope. But the greatest sense it gave me was one of relief. I could stop worrying for a while. I could stop thinking about it for a while. There was nothing I could do, so I could in fact do nothing about it.
I had coffee with my good friend Lou and her husband Joel a few mornings later. We talked about my predicament and they were very empathetic. They too had struggled in a similar fashion in their earlier years and had met with similar experiences and feelings. Lou made a suggestion. She suggested I call a mutual friend that we have in the community who is very involved in many projects and might have a greater insight into what is available or how to go about finding a job in a difficult job market. I took her advice and emailed my friends. I didn’t have the boldness and confidence to call and potentially face rejection.
A series of what I’m regarding as serendipitous or synchronistic events occurred after writing that email. I had lunch and a dinner date with my friend. She was eager to meet with me. A few days later I had lunch with my friends husband who was also eager to talk about my plight and share his own. No answers were offered up but I definitely came away with a feeling of being more connected to the community and the people in it. I got a call back and a job interview for a position that was of interest to me.
Nothing was for sure. But suddenly, since conceding defeat, possibility came knocking at my door. It was possibility where before there was none. All I had to do was bow to failure. It was about trusting in the universe to provide. A lesson I have learned over and over and over again in my life.
Today I have a burgeoning career in the publishing industry. It’s a small, local, independent weekly newspaper. But it provides me with challenges, allows me to experiment and learn. It has been born out of nothing and has potential to grow and for me to grow with it. As I reflect back to a year ago, when I finally bowed to failure, I remember my plight but I'm filled with gratitude for the experience.
