On failure
The summer of 2016 I was involved in organizing an alternative political convention. “The people’s convention for peace and justice” was to be a community effort to create a platform that didn’t start with the answers of various special interest groups, but with the question, “what kinds of policies would best promote peace and justice in our world and community?” While the GOP convention was located in downtown Cleveland and show-cased the “best” of Cleveland, our location was situated in East Cleveland, where the voices of those who are often forgotten by our major parties could be empowered and engaged. As the convention itself approached, I also was working to finish my book.
Both the book and the convention faced me with a troubling truth, no matter how much effort was dedicated to these endeavors, they could be conventional failures. We didn’t know whether the convention would draw people, and I didn’t know whether my book would ever get finished and whether it would sell. Regarding the book, I made a decision that success would be getting the book to a place where it was evident that I respected the reader enough to do all that I could to make it readable and meaningful, then publishing it. I also decided to see through my commitment to the convention and the talented team that worked on it. (To this point, the convention and my book have seemingly not succeeded in changing the world, but I am grateful for the experience of working on them with countless great people.)
It’s easy to fixate on results. It’s tempting to base our self-worth on the extent to which our efforts are recognized or rewarded. Unfortunately, we don’t control the end result. Rosa Parks was not the first woman to risk arrest by refusing to give up her seat nor was Dr. King the first person to speak out against segregation. Were the (apparently) fruitless actions of those individuals whose courage is all but forgotten any less heroic than those remembered few whose actions directly affected change?
The spiritual writer Richard Rohr suggested that the people who are most happy believe one or two things very well. Perhaps we would be wise to really believe that all we can do is try our best. Sometimes our efforts may result in success other times failure, but such failures need not be viewed with shame. During a soccer game I was watching on television, a soccer player (I believe for Barcelona) took an outside shot that looked bound for the far corner of the goal only to strike the post and bounce harmlessly away. While watching the replay, the announcer, with a distinct English accent, celebrated the shot, exclaiming it was “beautiful in its failure.”
I invite you to take a moment to remember some of your beautiful failures and be proud of your effort. Be proud that you had the courage to try, and most importantly keep trying. Greatness is not about the world’s affirmation (Hitler and Stalin were affirmed as great for a time), it is the courage to continuously strive to live rightly, regardless of the results. I feel fortunate to have so many beautiful failures in my life; they testify that I have not given up. Maybe beautiful failure is a form of authentic success. Beautiful failures are the result of effort, commitment, and struggle. The beautiful failers do everything in their power to succeed, then, have the courage to face judgment. They don’t know whether their efforts will be met with affirmation and reward, or whether they will fall short or be ignored. Theodore Roosevelt opined:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Peace,
Dave