In Praise of Failure

1.      fail·ure  

/ˈfālyər/

Noun 1.      Lack of success. 2.      An unsuccessful person, enterprise, or thing.

Synonyms failing - fault - fiasco - breakdown - bankruptcy

 I want to explore failure.I mean failure that is a lack of success, not a person. To call a person, whether it is oneself or someone else, ‘a failure’ is patronizing, unintelligent and cruel. Everybody constantly fails at almost everything, even the most successful of us. With the world in the grip of a global positive thinking hype the phenomena of failure has almost been forgotten. Books about success: how to get it, hold on to it and never lose it, are abundant and cause more harm than wellbeing. Once we are successful we want to hold on to that success. This is an impossible task. We will eventually be unsuccessful. We will all die. We are all naked and alone. That’s the reality of our situation, yours and mine.

Success divides us. Failure binds us. A keen awareness of our many failures and our inevitable deaths is, paradoxically, a recipe for a happier life. If I imagine in the morning that I’m going to die that same evening my day will be filled with wonder.  That’s why I want to paint my life in the light of good old failure, that awkward, familiar friend that every human knows so well. I grew, so did the failures, until they roared like a symphony’s crescendo. The older I became, the bigger were my failures. I had to admit that I had learned nothing. I am curious as to how gigantic my future failures will be. If measured by my past there's quite a tsunami of failure to follow. I'm looking forward to it.