I’ve been thinking about failure a lot lately, there have been a number of articles all talking about how we tend to tell our kids how wonderful they are, bolstering up their confidence but doing very little about helping them deal with failure. Life is full of failures and it’s important we know how to deal with them. In previous eras failure meant the difference between life and death, on the roads failure to concentrate or failure to stay awake can also mean the difference between life and death, just like that young man who was speeding down Centre Road, Bentleigh some months ago, he failed and died, taking out the fronts of some of the shops as well. Failing well is something we need to know about to ensure we’re able to to fail and keep on going.
This article in The Guardian has seven writers discussing failure. We don’t see Lionel Shriver as a failure but for many years that’s how she saw herself as it took some years and six books before she started to do well, we now see her as someone who’s done exceedingly well but is that how she sees herself? You should read the article, it’s interesting.
I sent a friend a card one day congratulating her on some achievement within her business, she rang me and we ended up talking for half an hour. During the course of this conversation I happened to brag about some of my cards and how they’ve made people cry, she suggested I write a book on how to write cards. I dismissed this out of hand as I really don’t feel I can write but I couldn’t get the idea out of my head and I’m now well on the way to completing this little tome. I can’t help wondering what is failure with this book. Is it not finishing it? Is it not managing to sell any copies? Is it not making any money from it? Is it not getting onto any bestseller lists? Is it not helping even one person to write one card successfully? I really don’t know and can’t answer any of my own questions. In actually writing the book I will have succeeded and I know I’ll be disappointed if I don’t manage to sell any but will I have failed? What is my goal with this book? Not really sure about that one either so it’ll be interesting to read my emotions after it’s published as I see what happens with it.
If I was any good with photo manipulation software I’d be including a little photo, the Uncle Sam photo with him pointing directly at the viewer saying “We Want You” except the words would be changed to read “You Failed”. I’m not, so I haven’t, maybe I failed.