We Are All Failures
“We are all failures — at least, all the best of us are.” — J.M. Barrie
There are times in our lives when things don’t go according to plan, and these problems can feel insurmountable. This is especially true in our culture, where stories of success are shared at every opportunity but stories of failure are hidden away.
Yet failure is not uncommon. Instead, it is part of every life and every journey.
Stories of success are, more often then not, built on top of past failures, yet any difficulties are often minimized to mere footnotes when in reality they might have spanned entire lifetimes.
Some failures come early on, and must be pushed through. Stephen King’s first novel was rejected dozens of times, and he threw the manuscript in the trash, frustrated and done with writing. His wife retrieved the book from the waste basket, and he submitted it again. That book became ‘Carrie’, which launched his career.
Some failures feel as if they’ll never end. Henry Ford founded two companies which went bankrupt before starting his organizational namesake. Not only did his third attempt create worldwide change, but the second failed company made its own comeback, and became Cadillac Motors. He had lived half of his life before he finally found success.
Some failures seem as if they’ll never end. In Os Guinness’ book ‘The Call’, the author shares a story of Leonardo Da Vinci struggling with failure at the end of his life. The prolific creator began to look around at his accomplishments, and felt as if he had come up short. His writings and innovations were entirely unpublished, many of his early works were destroyed, and works which were considered masterful, including the Last Supper, were beginning to decay before his eyes. As Guinness recounts:
One day, not long before he died at the royal palace of Cloux in the Loire Valley, he wrote in his notebook in unusually small script (as if, one writer commented, he were a little ashamed): “We should not desire the impossible.”
The fear of failure is strong, and even after accomplishing much we can still feel its grasp on our heart. Yet here’s a question: Should we not desire the impossible, or are we called to reach for it regardless of our own fears?
Erwin McManus writes on the danger of giving into our darkest thoughts in his book ‘The Artisan Soul’, where he says this:
We live in fear of failure, convinced that failure will prove us to be frauds. We have bought into the lie that creative people never fail and hence failure is proof that we are not creative. So we get back in line, our dreams in check, and condemn our souls to a slow and painful death.
The fear of failure condemns us. Failure itself does not. To be on ‘the hero’s journey’ means to face and overcome the challenges and temptations which are around us. It isn’t the end, but more often then not, is only the beginning.
This is a reminder:
