Failures and Other Fine Fiascos

Flops are part of life’s menu and I’ve never been one to miss out on any of the courses.–Rosalind Russell
 
There is no getting around it, is there? Failure is a definite drag. It’s hard. It hurts. It isn’t an experience that we happily invite into our lives.
 
But there are a heckuva lot more failures in life than there are successes. There isn’t one of us who hasn’t flopped numerous times–some minor failures, many major. In these challenging times, this economic downturn, you may be living through what you consider failure right now.
 
But the value of any failure lies in what we do with it. If we deny it or diminish it, we can’t learn from it. When I flop (as I do, often!), I have to face it squarely and ask myself why I failed–and be willing to learn from the answer. Then I can take another try. Having had a couple of practice runs (failures provide some really stunning practice), my chances for success are much greater. From this point of view, failure is just a practice run at success, a necessary step toward a glory. A grace, in other words.
 
It doesn't matter how many talents and gifts we have, or how often we succeed. it’s a rare glory that isn’t graced with at last one failure–likely, more than one. I wonder how many times Ginger Rogers fell on her fanny, or Merrill Streep missed a director’s cue. And I don’t dare tell you how many rejection letters I received for my China Bayles mystery series before an astute editor at Scribner’s read the first book and liked it. 
 
So here is the bottom line, my dears. I’ve been telling you that it’s important for women to share our success stories. Now I’m telling you that it is much more important to share our failures. When we discover that our flops and fiascos look and sound a lot alike, we may discover that our lack of success isn’t an individual failure, but arises from something that is common to all of us: that it grows from our shared history as women, from our culture, and (perhaps especially) from male expectations of us.
 
Or maybe we learn that what we or others define as failure isn’t failure at all. That was what I discovered when I began to probe my reasons for abandoning my career as a university administrator and tenured professor–an abandonment that my colleagues viewed as either a failure of nerve or as stupendous stupidity. But when I began to collect the stories of other successful women who had left their careers, I discovered that we had not failed, but had redefined our ideas of success. My book, Work of Her Own, grew out of these conversations. The book is testimony to the importance of sharing what some might consider failure–and discovering that "failure" may be far more glorious than the little success we aimed for.
 
Which is why I’d like you to spend a few minutes writing about some of the flops in your life. Yes, I know. It’s embarrassing. Maybe it’s painful. Some fiascos are funny, but some may be almost too devastating to think about. But chin up, dears. Take heart, be brave, and write.

• Start by jotting down a half dozen of the failures you have experienced–the first ones that come to mind. Don't dig around for the best of the worst, just jot down the first that occur to you.
• Choose one. What flopped? What happened? When did it happen? Where? Who else was involved besides you?
• Why did it flop?
• What did you learn?
• Where did you go from there? (Hint: from the bottom, the only way out is up. Right?)

Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to “jump at de sun.” We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.–Zora Neale Hurston

Glories, Gifts–and Graces

                                 

 

The heavens give of their abundance. Rejoice in riches.
“Possession in Great Measure” Hexagram 14, The I Ching

In these posts, I’ve been thinking about how we’ve gotten where we are in this world–an important kind of thinking in these times of difficulty. In “Glories,” I asked you to consider your accomplishments, your successes, your glories. In “Gifts,” I invited you to look at the gifts–of strength, courage, experience, training, determination–that you developed in order to aim for what you wanted.
 
Now let's explore one more aspect of trinity of ideas. Let’s explore our graces. here are a great many definitions of this small word: grace, most of them theological. But let’s see what happens when we define it this way:

 

Grace is what we are given in this world. Some of it is good, some bad. We don’t “earn” it–it comes to us through no particular merit or mistake of our own. Grace may come from God, if you’re a believer in Divinity, or from a beneficent Universe, or through the generosity of random chance. It includes things like the time, place, and circumstances of your birth and upbringing, as well as the happy accidents and synchronicities that have contributed to your growth and success. It also includes many things you wish hadn’t happened. These are still graces, although you may not recognize them as such. They are the fortuitous oppositions that strengthen your resolve.

In my own life, I’ve received more graces than I can count. I’ve written quite a few books, some of which I count among my glories. I confess to having a good mind, an insatiable curiosity, and a belief in the possible I. (Bragging? Yes, but take a look back at “Gifts.” We women need to learn to claim our strengths!)
 
But when I really start to think about it, many of my “gifts” turn out to be graces. My intellect is part of the package of genes I inherited from generations of unthanked ancestors (the luck of the genetic draw). My curiosity was encouraged by parents who answered my endless questions and sent me to the library, so I could chase down my own answers. (Fortunate me, with a free library around the corner!) And my optimistic belief in an open-ended self arises in part because I was born into post-WWII America, where women as well as men could get an education, and into a culture that asserts our right to realize our full potential. I was also graced with a couple of marital failures (bitter medicine), which taught me to understand what I needed in a partner, and a business failure that helped me understand my limitations. Grace, that’s what it was. Grace.
 
I am often surprised when I think to count my graces, for the more I count, the more there seem to be. And if pride in my accomplishments is the emotion I feel (naturally!) when I focus on my glories and gifts, gratitude is what I feel as I become aware of the many graces that have shaped me.
 
And what of your particular graces?
 
When you look at your glories and the gifts that have empowered you to achieve them, can you also see grace, sweet grace, braided through like a golden thread?
 
If you’re journaling with us, here’s a little journal exercise that may help you pull all this together: glories, gifts, graces. It won’t take more than a few moments, but it will richly reward your effort. The tougher the challenges we face, the more important it is to recognize our graces.

• In your bedside journal, each night, write down one glory for your day: one success (there are probably lots, but choose a favorite), one achievement.
• Next, write down two specific gifts (strengths, education, experience, attitude, whatever) that helped you achieve your success.
• Next, write down three graces that have helped you to become the woman who could achieve what you achieved today. (Bet you’ll be surprised!)
• Finally, write thank you.

Would you like to know one of my own daily graces, every day of my life?
 
You, beloveds. Each of you, all of you. Every brave woman who joins the circle of like-minded, open-hearted women; every vulnerable woman who fearlessly shares her story; every compassionate woman who listens with respectful attention to the stories of other women. Graces, all of you.
 
Thank you.
 
 
I do not at all understand the mystery of grace–only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us. –Anne Lamott