Failing successfully
If there is one thing that the human mind dreads, it is failure. Failure is a concept that the mind has created which, like Frankenstein, comes back to haunt it again and again. Nature and animals don’t know the meaning of failure. It does not exist in the physical world but only as an interpretation in the minds of human beings. Every year we read about the devastating impact failure has on students. It is not something to be taken lightly. Failure is to the ego what death is to the body. Every failure shrinks the self, makes it feel small, deflates self-esteem, and makes us lose faith in our capabilities. Since it has so much power over us we need to consciously cultivate an appropriate response to failure. The earlier we do this in life, the better. Otherwise, our reactions will fall into a negative stereotyped pattern which we will pick up from others and mistakenly assume that it is the best way to handle failure. A concept can only be fought with another concept. As failure is a formidable foe we have to muster as many counter perspectives as we can in our attempt to tame it.
Failure is essentially expectations not met. It would probably be better to discontinue using the word failure in our everyday lives and instead tell ourselves that it is only expectations not met, whenever we encounter what we perceive to be failure. This would reduce its impact on us since the word failure has such negative vibrations associated with it.
To handle failure we need to develop a proper relationship to success. The opposites go together. They cannot be separated. One affects the other. Those who are excessively elated over success will be unduly perturbed by failure. It is like a see-saw. If one goes up the other goes down. It does not mean we do not celebrate success. It does not mean that we view success and failure equally. To maintain a balance would require viewing success and failure from a larger perspective.
Failure looks menacing when looked at from close quarters. It is like a material object which appears big when kept close to the eye. Failure looms large and threatening when there is no mental distance between it and us. Failure then engulfs us and takes us over. To overcome this inbuilt mechanism of the mind we need to ask ourselves how huge this failure is when viewed from the context of an entire life. Fifty years from now would it matter? Would we not be laughing about it then? Today it looks as though the world is coming to an end. The farther away we are in time and space from an incident the smaller it looks. Failing in an examination or a business venture is just one more event in one's long lifetime which will soon be overwritten by many other beautiful and not so beautiful events.
Failure is directly related to expectations. The higher the expectations and poorer the results, the greater would be the gap between expectations and the outcome. The wider this gap, which we call failure, the stronger the emotional impact. Many students feel that they have written their best yet failed, and cannot understand why. Their ‘best’ was not good enough for the examiner who had much higher expectations. This does not mean we should not have expectations. Unless we expect to succeed we will not be motivated enough. At the same time, our expectations have to be fairly realistic, especially about other people. To mitigate the impact of failure we can always look back and evaluate whether our expectations were much higher than warranted.
A traditional way to handle failure, especially the big ones, is to call it destiny. This helps calm down the emotional turmoil to some extent. But this has its drawbacks if used often. It can make one fatalistic and superstitious and reduce the sense of responsibility. To explain failures the unseen hand of destiny should be used very sparingly.
One way of reducing the impact of failure is to use the word experiment. When you experiment with an idea and it fails you don’t feel so bad since it was an experiment. Scientists who experiment fail consistently and it is accepted as normal. In the world of experiments, failure is not a bad word. But this can be used only in certain situations. You cannot experiment with starting a new business or a new relationship.
Failure makes us feel that we are not capable enough. Actually, that’s not true. The situation must have been more than what we could handle at our current level of knowledge and skills. No matter how good, competent, and wise you are, life can always throw situations at you that are bigger than you. That does not mean you are incapable. You just have to raise a few notches higher to handle such situations. Interpreting it as failure is being too harsh on oneself. There is no human being on this planet, and there will never be, who is capable of handling successfully every conceivable situation.
We live in a world dominated by the successful. We have a success-obsessed culture where just one success won’t do. It has to be continuous and lifelong. Look at the way some sport heroes are treated. When they win a match we carry them on our shoulders all the way from the airport. But when they come back after losing they have to move around with armed protection. During moments of failure, they need emotional support. Instead of sympathy, we offer them rotten eggs. This is the normal fate of heroes. These perfect ones have let us down and shattered our dreams. Being so identified with them we see their failure as our failure. Success has become more important than the human being.
Success is our new god and a very demanding god at that. But the tragedy is our treatment of those who have failed. They are persona non grata. The ones who didn’t make it. So what? They deserve our empathy and sympathy, not rejection. At least they tried. It is better to have tried and failed rather than not tried at all. But then the world does not see it that way. It sees only the end results and nothing else. We cannot change the world but we can change our attitude towards failure. Because if this is going to be our attitude towards failure and we treat others like that it is going to be the same when it happens to us. We have much to learn from failed ventures, as much as from the successful, probably more. Successful people will tell you what to do. The unsuccessful ones will tell you what not to do, the roads not to take, and the pathways that we should avoid. There is wisdom in both success and failure. But culturally no one likes to talk about failures.
There are different kinds of failures and different causes for failure. There are controllable and uncontrollable factors. But all this is irrelevant. The mind does not go into deep analysis when there is failure. It simply goes down under. Pep talks are no use during such times. We just have to be there for them and share their pain. There is also an emotionally devastating situation which is popularly called failure in love. This is when a person falls in love with another but the other rejects or does not reciprocate. That which happens ever so rarely and which is an act of grace, namely falling in love, can turn out to be tragic at times. If the other person does not reciprocate what can be done? These things are not acts of will. Sometimes life can be unkind. Such people require the maximum emotional support.
To define our self in terms of success and failure is an invitation to inner turmoil. Life then becomes a roller coaster ride. Who I am has to be something that no concept can touch. We have to loosen our identities over these mental structures and consciously cultivate an identity beyond the reach of such concepts.
Life is not all about success and failure. That is too narrow a viewpoint. We are missing the larger picture of life if all we focus on is the pursuit of success and the avoidance of failure, which are labels stuck on end results. We cannot measure the value of a life by adding all the successes and subtracting all the failures. Both success and failure are means to an end, which is the holistic growth of the soul. The spirit needs all kinds of contrasting experiences, the good, the bad, suffering, happiness, success, and failure so that it does not become one-sided. If life were one long sunny joy ride or a continuous bumpy one the soul would never mature to its varied possibilities. A mature soul goes through failure successfully.
Some advanced spiritual aspirants use failure as a gateway to liberation. Failure is humiliating to the ego and the experienced seeker of truth knows how to use humiliation to diminish pride, which is said to be the greatest obstacle on the spiritual path. The opposite of pride, which is humility, then awakens, without which the doors to the kingdom of heaven do not open. But this is a road less traveled for most people as the ego can usurp our plan and take pride in humility.
Do people on the spiritual path consider themselves failures if they do not realize the Truth? Those who enjoyed the spiritual journey will not. Those who were only waiting for the result, will. The same is the case with everything. Those who enjoyed playing the game will not be affected as much as those who only wanted to win. When our focus is relatively more on the process and we enjoy it, the end result will not devastate us as much as when the focus is exclusively on the end result. If you enjoyed climbing the mountain but could not reach the summit you will come back with fond memories and some disappointment.
Since failure is one of the most painful of human experiences it also evokes the most sublime aspect of the human spirit — empathy. Empathy bonds people together. Failure then is not totally negative and without use. Life has its way of compensating. In the vulnerability of another we are able to see his humanness and something deep within us is able to relate to that. We touch common ground here. We bond more closely when we see tears in another.
Since failure hurts our pride we react adversely. Pride, which is the most powerful component of the ego, likes to take full credit for success and no responsibility for failure. That is why it indulges in the blame game and in finding scapegoats and excuses. This is when you can separate men of character from men of straw. Owning up to failure is an act of courage requiring honesty, humility, the subjugation of pride, and the maturity to realize that one need not be right all the time.
I failed as a parent is a feeling some people have when their children do not turn out as expected. This is being ungenerous with ourselves. There are so many uncontrollable factors in human development, especially external influences. All we can do is give our best for our children and pray.
All said and done it is equally important to have a feeling of having accomplished something in life which we can be proud of. This is the best antidote to thwart the feeling that one's life has not been all that purposeful. We are designed to live a meaningful life and are free to create the meanings we want. Meaning is the driving force of life. Aimlessness is not in our nature and can cause existential angst. The greater the meaning in our lives less the feelings of failure will torment us.
