Am I a Failure?
Nov 22, 2024
Following my recent reflection on the nature of ‘success’, I was asked to follow-up with a reflection on ‘failure’. This is a quite a reasonable request. Afterall, don’t many of us see success and failure as two sides of the same coin? Isn’t it a zero-sum game? One succeeds, or one fails. If failure is one half of a dichotomized pair, then we might infer that our positive feelings about success will be mirrored by the negative connotations of failure. As such, failure is perhaps a much more challenging, even confronting topic for discussion. If we crave success, we live in abject fear of failure. Many would sacrifice a great deal to avoid failure; most would prefer to pursue only modest success if that reduced or eliminated the possibility of failure. Some seek the comfort of ‘winning at the starting line’, knowing that success will be the only outcome in a contest before it has even begun. We have a complex relationship with failure, it would appear.
Perhaps a useful starting point is to determine what we mean by ‘failure’. There are many ideas or words associated with the notion of ‘failure’: it is an omission, an inability to perform or complete a task, an abrupt end of normal functioning, a deficiency, or a fracturing under stress. One of its original meanings defined failure as a ‘non-occurrence’; something was supposed to happen but didn’t.
This paints a fairly bleak picture of failure. There seems to be little merit to be found in something that was supposed to happen but didn’t. We don’t celebrate failure; we commiserate with its victims, happy in a schadenfreude-like way that it is not us. Yet, failure seems to assert its presence at every turn in life. We may fear failure, eschew failure, take every step possible to avoid failure, but its inevitability seems inescapable. Some accept failure with a stoic resignation: destined to fail, they embrace their fate and suffer in silence. Others engage in hubristic celebration of their apparent avoidance of failure. Failure is all around us in one form or another.
Perhaps we should reconsider what it means to fail and what failure might enable, beyond misery and despair. There are any number of glib cliches that encourage such a reconsideration: “Failure is the author of success!”, or “In order to succeed, we must first fail!”, or paradoxically, “If you must fail, fail gloriously!”. Whilst mildly encouraging, such cheery aphorisms in their brevity conceal an important truth when it comes to failure. Precisely how does failure lead to success? What role does or should failure play in our lives?
There is a famous quote, attributed to the inventor Thomas Edison that says, “I have not failed: I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” I admire the spirit of this saying. The first inference we might draw is that a single failure is not the end of a process: it may be followed by many more such ‘non-occurrences’. The second, and perhaps more challenging aspect of this is that finding a way that did not work may be useful in its own right: we might learn something valuable from a ‘non-occurrence’. This Edisonian view of the world, now known as ‘trial and error’, perfectly captures the philosophy of Sir Karl Popper in his seminal work: The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Popper, 2002). One of Popper’s insights was to redirect our thinking on the logical fallacy of inductive reasoning. Inductive logic is founded on the idea that broad generalizations may be drawn from a body of observations. If we observe an apparently consistent natural phenomenon, we might induce a theory or explanation to describe it. Popper insisted that this was logically flawed because the set of observations from which such generalizations are drawn is unavoidably finite; it rests on probability. Only an infinite number of observations of the same phenomenon would prove beyond all doubt the veracity of the generalization; only then does one establish certainty. Intriguingly, Popper turned this idea on its head: if we conduct a single observation or experiment based on a general theory and it fails, we have learned a certain and indisputable truth that cannot be refuted. There is no need for an infinite number of observations, as we have already proved beyond doubt that the theory was wrong. Edison put this concept to very effective use in eliminating possibilities and learning as a result.
Taking this idea further, it is through testing and failure, that we accumulate knowledge of our world and ourselves. Let me offer a very modern example of this: the miracle of powered flight. Anyone who has ever flown in an aircraft has been the beneficiary of this concept in practice. Manufacturers of aircraft engines, the essential part of the aircraft that keeps it aloft and the passengers safe, test engines to failure constantly. In the field of aeronautical engineering, the acronym MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) is a parameter of the performance, quality and reliability of an aircraft engine. This measure is assigned based on evidence gathered through sustained observation of the engine and all its constituent components in operation. Through failure, there is incremental or even revolutionary improvement. The failures become less frequent. The MTBF lengthens. Aircraft become safer. Redundancies are added to systems to accommodate partial failures and enhance safety.
The ’trial and error’ model is based in a reality that is focused on improvement, growth, and the pursuit of excellence. We risk failure when we test our limits, but it is only through testing our limits that we discover who we really are. If our lives are spent carefully avoiding the danger of failure through staying within our limits, we will never understand ourselves and never grow. It is only looking back on ourselves, from the furthest boundaries of what we know and can do, that we truly understand our strengths and limitations. Stepping over that boundary into the unknown is an act of courage that risks failure. But that very act also enables a process of growth and expansion. Our world becomes bigger, our lives become larger. Our knowledge and skills are extended. Our personal MTBF is enhanced, as we develop a true sense of self. Failure, in this sense, offers a kind of mirror to show us who we are and perhaps who we might be.
Each of us is a ‘failure’ at some point. When balancing probability against certainty, the finite against the infinite, we must ultimately risk and embrace failure. The consequences of not failing are dire: it limits us, constricts us, diminishes us. Fear of failure leaves us marooned in a smaller version of ourselves that is perhaps safe, to an extent, but which is also a cut-down, sanitized, sketch caricature of what truly lies within. To cite another cliché, we rise phoenix-like from the ashes of failure. As such, perhaps the only true failure in life is failing to fail.
Dr. Malcolm Pritchard
Head of School
Popper, K. (2002). The Logic of Scientific Discovery (2nd ed.). Routledge.
