The success of failure

What have you failed at? I actually hope there is a long list indicating that at least you tried and gave lots of things your best shot. Also, I trust that your list, like mine, covers a variety of topics. Here are a few of my failures and what I’ve learned from them.

In 10th grade I was failing Chemistry, a subject usually taken during one's junior year back

then. I was in an experimental accelerated college prep program and our curriculum was both ahead of schedule and crammed full. That year we had Latin and French during one period every day, so perhaps it was all the other subjects or just how my brain worked. The combination of NA+CL for table salt just didn't click with me. In a conference with the teachers they told me they thought if I stuck to it I could get a C and that would be OK. It wasn't for me, so they made an exception and allowed me to drop the class and pick it up the following year. On that second try I did just fine. 

From that experience I learned that what can sees like a very public failure and humiliation to me does not really matter to others. I saw that people define failure differently and that bad timing can be part of why one fails. Finally, having a second chance taught me I had to not let the failure define me and to try again. 

Sometimes I remembered to put those lessons to work in relationships, but all too often I didn’t. There have been people who have passed through my life and then the relationship went sour. We both walked away feeling we had failed, instead of recognizing the poor timing. And when I think about failed relationships, I remember all the people I failed at changing, until I learned another life lesson that the only person I can change is myself.

In a box in my closet are many rejection letters from publishers and on the computer or in notebooks there are dozens of ideas that never went anywhere, or have yet to be explored. There are lots of projects I've failed to complete, games I've not mastered. There were jobs I interviewed for but didn't get and things I dreamed of that never materialized. 

Failure can result from not trying hard enough, but practice does not necessarily make perfect. I may have memorized the periodic table but needed that extra year before what it stood for really clicked. Practice may not even make competent and we may simply fail. We try things and either find a good fit or not. And, having tried, we can and need to move on, or as C.S. Lewis wrote, "one fails toward success."

Marilyn