FACES OF FAILURE

September 5th, 2018

Failure is often a huge, demoralizing experience that feeds our insecurities and cripples further action. 

For the scientist who has hundreds of experiments lined up to probe the truth of some given piece of matter. . . how is an unexpected result on experiment 256 taken?  Like an emotional trauma?  Doubtful.  Scientists would get nowhere if this was the case.  Most likely the reaction is:

“Huh…interesting.”

Impersonal, dispassionate… if anything, such a reaction hints that curiosity has been invoked. 

An unexpected result implies that the subject goes deeper than previously thought.  An unexpected result shows that there is more to learn.  The map is not big enough, not detailed enough. . . There is more enjoyable work to do.

Failure enters our lives in many ways.  Those who interpret it best do not even call it failure.  Some actually enjoy failure for the simple reason that it allows them to try again and improve the method, the action, the strategy, the thinking.

We have a habit of becoming so emotionally attached to what we attempt, and what people might think of our result that we often blind ourselves from the true value of the result.

The scientist sees simple feedback from the universe.

The first time entrepreneur might see a destroyed future.

Which face of failure might aid the other?

It is not some emotion inherent in reality or the result that coats it with identity.  It is our perspective that coats the feedback with emotion.  If we test reality with our understanding and our estimation of what can be accomplished, reality will give us feedback.  Our perspective of that feedback is everything.

If our perspective is agile and open, we can be quicker to see a new way.

If our perspective is emotionally plump, we are fragile, and taking the next step after some ‘failure’ might….never happen.

Moving forward is imperative.

What face will we put on failure?

If we want to move forward?