A couple of years ago, one of my friends asked me if I’d ever felt like I’d failed at something. At the time, I honestly couldn’t think of an example from my own life.
We got interrupted and never came back to the conversation, but sometimes I still think about that moment and what I didn’t finish saying: I couldn’t think of an example not because I hadn’t taken risks or because I had done everything right or because everything had gone perfectly for me in life, but because “failure” wasn’t really a term in my vocabulary. Instead, I thought more in terms of “yet,” perceiving things that hadn’t gone as I had hoped or planned or worked towards not as final failures but as things that were still in-progress, working themselves out. It’s an artist’s way of viewing the world, perhaps: Everything is part of the process.
All this time later after I have more experience with risk and failure and rejection, it’s something I need to remind myself again: I am not defined by my performance or by what I have or don’t have or by what I have or haven’t achieved. A failure is not a mistake, and a mistake is not a failure; failure can help us get to the right path and therefore be helpful, and mistakes can be righted and therefore not have the final word.
And also, not everything comes easy or on the first — or 50th — try. It’s not our job to be perfect or to know the answers before we can know them. Sometimes, the only way is through, and it’s through taking a risk that we learn about ourselves. Not everything, and especially not life, I guess, goes in a straight line, the way we thought it would. It’s only failure if we stop trying; but before that, it just hasn’t happened yet. (And in many situations, it’s also OK to quit something if we decide it no longer aligns with our goals; that’s part of being a person.)
In this issue, we take a lighthearted look at failure. Women from the Southeast Missouri State University Gymnastics Team share what they learn about perseverance from a sport that implies failure by demanding perfection. Our photo shoot shows imperfect details that happen in real life, asking us to question most photo shoots that portray women perfectly and flawlessly. And seven girls and women offer up epic fail moments from their own lives to help us laugh at embarrassing moments and move on. We hope these stories help you to become more comfortable with your own fallibility and free you to risk being silly or wrong or unsure, so you can live a life that is beautiful and raw and full.
Because to be human is to be imperfect, to make mistakes, to fail. The Divine can’t do this; it’s our privilege. Do we trust Love to take our failures and shortcomings and create something beautiful and meaningful with and from them? Our lives are God’s material, and that is grace.
Somewhere I can’t remember now I read: “Failure isn’t obstacles in the path. It is the path.” Maybe closed doors and failed attempts and “no’s” are guides through the wilderness, the banks for bodies of water like bumper rails showing us where to flow. As we run along, they’re cheering us on, showing us the way that leads to the ocean, the bigger-than-us goal, all that open.
Because maybe it’s not all up to us. And maybe it’s not all finished yet. And maybe all of the disappointments and failures and rejections are just waiting for us to notice and believe what they are giving testament to: We’re getting to where we’re going, and nothing is ever wasted.
It’s all part of the journey, the adventure.
Joy, Mia
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