When all else fails try failure – it’s much underrated

Failure gets a bad press – that’s how I see it.

Sure, I accept there some spectacular nose dives for which no one should take credit. I think of NASA’s project to launch a supper space probe to Mars. Who did they put on the job? The world’s biggest and best brains, that’s who.

As a result, the Mars Climate Orbiter rose majestically from Cape Canaveral on a clear December day. Nine months later its trundle though space ended by smashing headlong into the red planet’s mysterious surface.  Thus wrecking the project, denting some huge egos and wasting $300 million in one big bang.

A natural disaster? A malfunction of the equipment? Nope. Just the failure of those mega-brains to realise that one part of the team had been using English units of measurement and the other the metric system.

Pause for a moment. Capture the wonder of such an epic c#ck up and wonder. It’s an order of merit failure. The kind deserving all the nominations at the Global Failure Awards – where no one comes off looking good.

But that’s not the only kind of failure. Sure it’s a kind I like most, as it makes my lurching progress through my short span of history look somewhat less asinine. But there’s a better kind of failure out there that truly deserves an Oscar of its own.

It’s the failure that comes from ‘having a go’. That’s not a very technical term I confess. And such a concept deserves something more robust and flamboyant. But it will do for now.

Failure from ‘having a go’ is the kind of failure that leaves you richer then before and more valuable to yourself and others. The problem is, when that kind of failure becomes our experience we are likely to be so distracted by the hurt that we miss the true value of what has happened.

But when the dust has settled and the emotional bruises are hurting less, it would be good to see how this kind of good failure takes us forward.

At the very least we are now better informed. To quote former US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” Or in the words of Benjamin Franklin the American statesman, scientist, philosopher and inventor “I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways that didn’t work”.

As basket ball legend Michael Jordan pointed out, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. And 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”

For me the classic example of ‘having a go’ failure was Peter, the follower of Jesus, sinking after taking a few steps on the water.  He’d seen his Master walking over the waves and was open to having a go himself if Jesus invited him to do so.

His ‘having a go’ resulted in Peter walking further on water than anyone before or since. Sure, he didn’t make it all the way. But just think what he achieved in the process of having a go.

And to push a point, the failure that deserved no accolade at all was there in the same incident. It was the rest of the disciples safe and dry in the boat. It doesn’t take much talent or character to keep out of trouble. But, as a songwriter friend of mine sings, ‘I’d rather be lost on the ocean of life than safe in the harbour with you’.

As for my favourite failure quote it’s – “Fear of failure must never be a reason not to try something.” I just wish it wasn’t from the lips of Sven Goran Eriksson.

Could it be my fault I’m ‘this’ busy?

I’ve been asking myself how I come to be this busy – not just now but constantly. And have been thinking back to the lesson I should have learned from the man who came to do some wallpapering a while back.

But first things first.  Why do I find it so hard to say ‘no’? And, come to that, why do there seem to be so many others with the same ‘ok, I’ll do it’ reflex? Because that’s where most hectivity seems to come from.

Here’s my list of reasons -

We foolishly believe our value is based on what we do or achieve rather than who we are. Deep down and unspoken we feel incomplete, under-loved and undervalued. That may be so ‘deep down’ we don’t even recognise it as true. But the outcome is to try to fill the gaps by piling on the work and achievements.

Which means a useful antidote to such a disease would be to reflect more on the fact that we are cherished and appreciated by the God who made us. And that the value he places on us ought to be speaking to us louder than it does.

The true value of any object has nothing to do with the price tag it carries. The real issue is what someone will pay. And so far as we are concerned, the price God paid for us was the life of was his Son making us, effectively, priceless. I have a sense that if this gripped me more I’d be less driven to ‘do’ in order to gain approval – both my own and from others.

We fail to recognise that saying ‘yes’ to ‘this’ means saying ‘no’ to ‘that’. This is where our wallpaper man comes in but please be patient. The key lesson is that time does not expand to accommodate each new commitment we make.

The reality we too often try to deny – like good old King C trying to hold back the waves – is each day remains twenty-four hours long no matter what. Enter Mr Wallpaper.

He came to give us a quote to spruce up our dining room. We liked the price and asked when he could do it. If I’d been him I’d have said, ‘When do you want it?’ And then said, ‘OK, I’ll find a way, even if the answer had been ‘yesterday’’.

Not him. He’d already figured it was three days to do everything. Out came a diary with days crossed through. ‘I have a gap in three and a half weeks time,’ he announced. Which is exactly what he did – with calm and serenity all over his face.

He knew that days would not grow hours, or weeks grow days, just because he had made a commitment to deliver. What if I were to start working to the same reality?!

We don’t say ‘no’ because we are not clear enough about what we have said ‘yes’ to. Shouldn’t Jesus have been the most driven and overworked person to have walked the planet? So little time. So much to say and do. So many in desperate need of what only he could deliver.

Yet he never seemed to canter or break out into a sweat. How come? After all, think of him as he makes his way steadfastly to Jerusalem.  It takes little imagination to reconstruct the possible words of his disciples walking the same road.

‘Master, there is a village close by where many need to be healed.’

‘There is a distraught family, Master, where you could bring such a change. It won’t take long.’

‘Think of the difference you can make! It’s not far out of our way.’

Yet Jesus kept going to Jerusalem. How was that possible? Because he knew what he had already said ‘yes’ to. He knew where he was going. He knew what we need to know – that a need does not always equal a call. And the clearer we are about our own ‘Jerusalem’ the freer we will be to say ‘no’.