The Audacity of Failure

If you've visited our "How" page, you know that Tuesdays are inspiration days. This week, we're talking about the challenges faced by creative individuals, and how those challenges can lead into the Art Abyss - but also how they can lead back out, into greater achievement and more creative fulfillment than ever before.

As I sat down to write this post, one creative individual immediately sprang to mind as an example of someone who walked through the abyss and emerged thriving. The tired stereotype of the starving artist suffering in a garret is often used to discredit and put down people who choose to pursue a creative lifestyle -- I personally can't count the number of times I've been told by family and family friends that they "just hope I can afford to eat," or that "I find someone to take care of me." In J.K. Rowling's case, experiencing that very form of 'failure' was exactly the transformative process she needed:



Does this woman sound like a failure to you?? Me neither. Some of my favorite takeaway moments:

"I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive." 

"Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life." 

"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 fail by default." 

"Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way." 

"The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are ever after secure in your ability to survive." 

"Happiness lies in knowing that life is not a checklist of acquisition and achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life."

Can I get an AMEN?? Seriously, the faster we rid ourselves of the idea that failure is a bad thing, the better. I had a music teacher at my undergrad who demonstrated the concept perfectly. He set up a music stand so the wide flat part was parallel to the ceiling, then asked a class member to throw a wadded up sheet of paper onto the stand. The first time, the paper completely missed the stand; the second, it rolled off; the third time, the paper landed perfectly. Afterward, he asked her how she felt when she missed -- was she a terrible person, a failure and a disappointment?

Of course not -- it was just throwing a piece of paper. What he then went on to explore was why, when we are performing a piece of music, or creating a painting, or writing a poem, we suddenly lose that sense of perspective. Failing at the task we are attempting becomes something that reveals a deeper lack within ourselves. By extension, failure to "live a successful creative life" -- becoming the ignored and starving artist in the garret instead of reaping the financial and social rewards of artistic popularity -- can lead us to feel that we are not worthy of anything more, that we don't have what it takes to follow and succeed at our passion. Yet when you really think about it, how is a creative endeavor any different from throwing that piece of paper? You conceive of the idea, you give it your best shot, and if it doesn't work out, you try again. What's there to feel bad about?