Lean Into Failure

I just finished an excellent book that is, in fact, hardly a book. 

It was actually a commencement address delivered by the inimitable Pema Chondron, Buddhist nun and spiritual leader. It’s called Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better.

She writes:

“When you follow your heart — with a career change or writing the book or whatever it might be — there is no guarantee that the whole thing won’t be a total failure and there’s no guarantee that you’re not going to get criticisms. 

The question is are you going to grow or are you going to just stay as you are out of fear and waste your precious human life by status quo-ing instead of being willing to break the sound barrier? Break the glass ceiling or whatever it is in your own life? Are you willing to go forward?”

I love this reframe of failure. You try because you want to live fully. Because you want to achieve.

Failure is not falling short of your goals. Failure is not trying. 

The biggest failure of my life so far has been my first marriage. I divorced at age 32 and felt I had failed in a huge and public manner. Everyone knew that I had screwed up. I was filled with self-loathing that I hadn’t been able to make it work. I feared I would never recover.

It took me several years of therapy and reading spiritual books to begin thinking about my first marriage in a different light. Even more importantly, I wrote about it. I wrote a memoir told in the context of my very first 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat called 10 Days of Silence, and I shared it with my closest friends and family members. It recast my story – I was no longer the victim. It helped me gain insight and perspective. Here is what I realized. 

First of all, I was wrong about the “everyone knew I screwed up” part. I mean, sure, they knew. They just didn’t care! It mattered very little to very few people that I was divorced. 

Second, true, the marriage didn’t work out. But did I learn from it? You bet I did. I grew immensely as a person, discovering what it means to collaborate with someone, to negotiate my needs and his, to know when to put him first and when to listen to my own desires. 

Not only that, we had a lot of fun in those 9 years we were together! We traveled the world for a year. We lived in Paris for a year. We had wonderful experiences with friends. We raised a puppy together. We loved each other.  It wasn’t like I had suffered the whole time we were married!

So, was my first marriage a failure? Certainly not.

WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK: Reframe a Failure

This week, I encourage you to think about a failure in your own life. Then see if you can look at it differently. 

• Did you learn from the experience?
• Did you grow as a person?
• Did you emerge stronger and wiser?
• Are you more compassionate now to the “failings” of others?
• Are you more helpful to those in need?

Well then, maybe it’s not a failure.

Feel free to hit Reply and share your failure reframe with me.

Aloha,

MeiMei

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

~Samuel Beckett, Author

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