Fail is a Four-Letter Word

Failure is all the rage. You can’t get through an instant of scrolling on LinkedIn or other social media sites without someone extolling failure’s many virtues. But what’s so exceptional about tragic failure, organ failure, bank failure, moral failure, market failure, repeated failure, and miserable failure? I know you think I’m missing the point and that rebounding from failure is what it’s all about. You want me to understand that failure is part of life; we need to accept failure, move on, and try, try again. Yes, I agree with this notion in principle, but I take formal umbrage with the word failure as it’s used in this context. Look more closely with me. The Oxford Languages dictionary defines failure as “a lack of success” and “an unsuccessful person, enterprise, or thing.” But what does this mean, a lack of success? Well, the word lack is defined as “the state of being without” or “deficient in.” Taken this way, failure means that when we don’t get the job, don’t meet the quota, don’t score the touchdown, don’t get the second date, we are without success and have achieved little or nothing. Failure is not some abstract concept; someone must ostensibly accomplish the failure, and that someone is apparently you. Moreover, synonyms for failure are rife with Debbie Downers such as: defeat, fiasco, wreck, washout, screwup, loser, and the catchy but disparaging term cock-up. Seriously, this is complete claptrap. When we don’t accomplish what we initially set out to do, it does not mean that we failed. Rather than telling ourselves that we failed, we can simply tell ourselves, “It didn’t work out as planned” or “It missed the mark” or “The results were not as expected.” Yes, there are maybe four or five more words to get through, but not one of them leaves us feeling like a loser. Additionally, fear of failure leads to risk aversion. But if we only feared “missing the mark,” it’s likely we’d take more chances and more risks—which leads to more innovation and creativity.

When we don’t accomplish what we initially set out to do, it does not mean that we failed. 

Famous, influential, and highly accomplished people the world over have chummed up to failure: Oprah Winfrey said, “Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.” J.K. Rowling said, “It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” And Thomas Edison said, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

The excellent, underlying message throughout is keep trying. But let’s examine this last often-quoted statement. Thomas Edison speaks from experience. It seems like he never gave up on anything and enjoyed tremendous acclaim and success. He was one of the greatest and most prolific inventors of all time and acquired a record number of 1,093 patents, many profoundly and positively impacting people’s lives the world over. His creative genius was behind the invention of the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb, and one of the earliest motion picture cameras. But he was also often described as moody, socially maladroit, and so tireless that he would lock himself away in his lab for immeasurable hours. Edmund Morris, author of the biography, “Edison,” once compared Edison to electricity itself – an invisible force. But not everyone aspires to be a Thomas Edison. I’ve never invented a thing, and my lifetime accomplishments don’t stack up against even one of Edison’s, but I also don’t believe that “Many of life’s failures are people…[who] gave up.” Who knows why someone gives up? Perhaps they want to try something entirely different, or have personal or mental health problems, or they don’t care about material success. Not everyone hungers for achievement or equates it with success.

Reproaching ourselves for falling short obscures the deeper meaning of life experiences and reduces them to a pass/fail scorecard.

How do we even know that something is a failure? Why do we only judge the immediate outcome rather than believe it may be a blessing in disguise setting us up for something better, something more wonderful that we can’t yet envisage. It might seem like a failure when we lose the promotion or the awesome date, but if not for these losses, the next good thing (the dream job, dream partner) might never have happened. Each experience (good, bad, and everything in between) shapes us and makes us who we are. Reproaching ourselves for falling short obscures the deeper meaning of life experiences and reduces them to a pass/fail scorecard. Whenever I ask my Chabad rabbi, “How are you?” the answer is always “Baruch Hashem,” which basically means “Thank God.” In other words, thank God for everything good and seemingly not good because everything has a purpose, even if it is not revealed to us now. Our happiness, equilibrium, and sense of success should not be at the sway of a given moment to moment event, and our mood should not be a servant to circumstance.

As we move through life, we must remind ourselves that nothing we do is a failure, and we are certainly not failures. Each of us is doing the best we can at any given moment. That’s not to say we can’t do better in the future, but that is to say that we did not fail.

Dr. Beverly Wertheimer, DMin, MSW is an associate child and adolescent therapist, adjunct professor of psychology at Pepperdine University, and CEO of BeWorthy life coaching. She is a former TV broadcast journalist at ABC and NBC affiliates, Entertainment Tonight, and CNN Turner Entertainment.