The privilege that’s called failure
It’s been over 120 hours since Hillary Clinton’s failure in winning majority of the votes and a lot has changed ever since. USA being entrusted in the hands of somebody like Donald Trump is probably the most potent repercussion of her failure. If you listen really hard, you can almost hear the entirety of the US (or at least the digital world’s echo-chamber) loudly whispering “Uh-oh”.
Hillary Clinton’s failure hit close to home for a majority of the global citizens. After her concession speech, people fell more in love with her. She got noticed and respected by so many people. She lost the elections, yes. But it was a dignified loss. So, did she really fail? Is she a failure?
Failure isn’t black and white. The positive outcomes from one failure could be plethora. Failure is gray-scale. Abstract. There are abject failures borderlining foolishness in human endeavor and then there are game-changing failures. A failure that is going to turn a million heads isn’t a failure per se. The path to becoming a known-failure isn’t easy. Not one bit. Ask NASA whenever a launch fails. It’s failure of an epic scale that moves them forward. The universe roots for them.
Hillary Clinton earned the privilege of a spectacular failure. Nobody talks about Gary Johnson’s failure. Nobody talks about Jill Stein’s failure(who would’ve been the first female president too, if she had been elected).
A notable failure in itself is a success.
Failure is an earned privilege. So, how exactly did Hillary earn her privilege? She created the opportunity for herself. She gave it all she had. She played by the “go big or go home” motto. She failed, but she failed really well and at a level that most of us in our lifetime won’t reach.
In this largely apathetic world, attention is a privilege. Failure is celebrated among startups. Not because failure is romantic, but for the fact that they get noticed.
Let’s take the example of PV Sindhu. You won’t know her because she is just another silver medal winner in the recent Olympics. In other words, she failed to win a gold medal in the Olympics for India, the country she represented. Majority of the Indians didn’t know of her till she reached the top charts. And now, she’s a household name (thanks to her achievement and a liberal dose of corporate endorsement deals that followed her “failure”). She made a lot of people play badminton. She made a lot of Indians take sports seriously. So, did she really fail?
Mahatma Gandhi — known for his “ahimsa” was in the race for the Nobel Peace prize and lost it more than 7 times, even posthumously. The argument of how good a person he was or if he deserved to be nominated is a moot point. The point here is — he failed to win a Nobel prize.
Win or lose, it all comes down to how long you are in the limelight for.
As I drove, listening to the radio announce how dramatically the fortunes had changed in hours for Hillary, I couldn’t help but relate to founders and startups I know. Quantifiable milestones like funding and exits have made failure hard to accept. Pundits talk about tens of millions of dollars of exits as small outcomes.
But when you speak to those who just missed the ultimate mark, you realize that they are the A-players. They did get many things more right than most of us could. They are achievers. They have moved the needle — maybe not in the manner that makes the climax riveting but they did not play the game so that the gallery can cheer.
I told myself, that I am in the game to play, to win and may be even to hit it out of the park but not because the crowd would cheer for me, but because I just enjoy the game immensely. My love for the game won’t diminish one bit because I failed to deliver, for I recognize that I am in the chosen few who are playing that game and not just watching!
Here’s to you, for being a player!
