On Failure
The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps, of which I am a proud volunteer.

People are uncomfortable with failure. Americans in particular do not accept it. In Romania there is a cultural stigma against failure that says its better not to try than to try and fail. Someone described it as Americans will start out saying "yes" and Romanians will start out saying "no." I think that's accurate.

I think one of the most valuable things we have to teach as Romanians in America is that you can fail - the only redeeming point about America's attitude toward failure is that we have an underbelly of "at least you tried" which doesn't exist here. As a postcard I found in my apartment left by the previous Peace Corps volunteer says "Even if you fail, at least you are trying to succeed. You could do nothing." I think if we can impart that value to Romania, we will have accomplished a lot.

I have had a couple of experiences in my life where I've completely failed at something - and when I say "failed" I don't mean "blew it off" or "didn't do what I could have." What I mean by Failure in this instance is that I gave 100% of everything I had - there was absolutely nothing more I could do - and still I failed. Many people if they find themselves close to failing, find the resources (either within themselves or in friends and family) to pull themselves out at the last minute. Therefore I don't know many people who claim to have this experience of Failure and very few people I have met in life can relate to Failure. It is like hitting a wall.

Therefore, when I relate my experience starting out in a "this is what happened to me" style, I quickly become assertive. Because it has been my experience the other person needs some convincing that I did in fact Fail - that there was nothing I could have done to try harder. Maybe it's because of my assertions, but the other person almost always argues with me my experience was not actual Failure (capital F) but just failure on my part to do something more.

Example:"I'm sure if you went to therapy and overcame math anxiety you could do math."
No. I have math anxiety and a learning disability. While Math anxiety may be treatable, a learning disability is not something that can be cured. I'm sorry you don't believe me but it's not a matter of not having tried. It's not a matter of not wanting to learn.

This treatment of my experience - making it invalid - is incredibly frustrating on top of the experience of Failing. I do realize that tat it's not my failure that they disbelieve, it's the idea that people can fail that they don't want to believe. Because if it happened to me it could happen to them and they don't want to think about what it's like to have that incredibly frustrating experience like beating your head against an immovable object.

But I don't have to think about it what that's like. I know.

So when you encounter someone sharing an experience with you from their life, and incredibly frustrating experience of Failure, don't try to convince them that there's more they could have done. They are probably more than anything else just looking for someone to acknowledge and validate their experience. They are looking for someone to say "I understand that it was very difficult." They don't want to hear, "I'm sure there was something else you could have done."

And in the meantime chances are when someone is telling you about the worst period in their life - the story is going to be negative. I bet the story of the worst thing that ever happened to you isn't a positive story. So don't assume the situation was a negative one because of this attitude. Attitudes are shaped by circumstances and someone who starts out with a good attitude in a situation can change their attitude over time. When the good attitude receives no nourishment, it bears no fruit and it dies.

I have learned to appreciate my failures. For one thing they taught me to identify and understand what other people in unjust circumstances are going through. It can be very helpful to know that failure is possible - even when you are trying your hardest, and I find it useful to be able to identify with what people in other situations are going through.

But for now, I have to figure out how, when I get this response of someone trying to invalidate my life experience, how not to let it take me right back to that darkest time in my life when the Failure was actually happening. If anyone has any advice on that, I'll happily take it.

I can't mull this over in my head anymore, so I had to write about. Now I'm going to go take a shower and stop feeling this way.