Failure is More Instructive than Success
Written by John Erianne on September 17, 2008 – 10:21 am -My niece, Jacy, amazes me sometimes.
She’s fifteen and is constantly busy with some activity or other. She’s an honor student, is the only female trombone player in the high school marching and jazz bands, member of the tennis team, yearbook, and an honors student to boot. She’s popular and has miles of friends. She loves to ride horses. Jacy is probably the closest thing I will ever have to a daughter of my own and I’m rather proud of her much of the time. In many respects she’s living the teenage experience I could only dream of when I was in high school.
But, most weeks her biggest problems revolve around english saddles
v. western or whether or not she’ll have a ride to the Mall and Jacy whines about the littlest, dumbest things. The smallest, most insignificant adversities will throw her off her game and send her into a fit of crying and raging. Part of this can be chalked-up to the fact that she is a teenage girl and a Scorpio, but I think it has a lot more to do with the fact that kids today have such lofty expectations. They want what they want and can’t envision a universe that doesn’t surrender it to them. It’s more than optimism — it’s a hardwired sense of entitlement. And while having that sense of entitlement, tends to make them more adventurous and more resolute, it doesn’t really teach them anything about rolling with the punches life throws at you. One could say the same thing about many writers. Some writers operate under the delusion that the literary world owes them some reward just because they put words on paper and when their delusion is challenged, rather than learn from the obstacles thrown in their path, they throw a little hissy fit.
If you are a writer you know this to be true: We learn more from our missteps than from our successes. If you are a writer who operates much like a spoiled teenager, you will never truly evolve. If you are incapable of acknowledging and embracing your failures, you will not learn the lessons failure and adversity can teach you.
Here’s what failure has taught me:
1. The universe doesn’t revolve around me — I revolve around the universe. Who knows? You may well be a major talent — motherfucking star, but always remember you are but one among billions. The art of writing isn’t really about you. It’s about the universe around you. Get over yourself and explore the universe.
2. Perfection is largely a myth — rather, it is the lining up of imperfect parts into a more interesting whole. So, give yourself permission to fail. Most things in life were achieved after a lot of trial and error. Experiment. Line-up the imperfect pieces and see what you can make of it. See rejection as an opportunity to move in new directions or at least refine what has come before.
3. Sometimes the act of doing something is more rewarding than the result itself. If you enter into a writing project with a preordained goal in mind, e.g. “I am writing story X to get it published in magazine Y,” you will probably be disappointed in the result a lot of the time if magazine Y continually rejects it. Always write in the moment. Don’t concern yourself with magazine Y or literary agent Z until after you’ve finished the story. Enjoy the act itself, the flow of words onto paper — everything else is just a distraction.
4. Always remember that your only real competition is your future self. You’re only as good a writer as the next best thing you write. It’s not about what other writers are writing or what you’ve written in the past. Every writing project begins with a clean slate. Always look forward, not backward or off to the side to see who’s gaining on you.
5. Don’t whine. Nobody appreciates a whiner and crying about this editor over here who didn’t publish your best story or poem, or that contest you didn’t win, or that writer over there who’s more successful than you, is a waste of your time and energy. Instead, redirect your energies into being a better writer and a better human being.
