Learning to fail; 
helping to live

I recently did a talk in a high school. After the Q&A, a young person came to thank me personally for one of my responses. I was rocked by what she told me, that just a few weeks prior she had tried to take her life. I asked myself what would make a young person feel this bad, to think that this was ‘the only way out.’ Yet, having been down that same road many years ago, my head was in a spin driving home.

I think what causes too many of our youth, and grownups like myself to think like this is the fear of, or the actual possibility of… failure. Most people realize that they will fail at something at some time, all a part of learning to succeed, but for others the fear of failure is shameful; a feeling of letting others or yourself down. When I was growing up, a bad report card meant we repeated the grade, but today no one fails. They might even get stickers for showing up. Even though his son failed school miserably, a friend of mine still bought him a scooter .., as a reward? A consolation prize? Why bother to try if you get the reward either way? There is no need to take responsibility for failure today.

To the contrary, pressures put on some students are so high as to be unattainable. They must be at the top, be the best, be the ‘all-star’, while realistically, very few will ever make it to the top, although that does not mean that we ought to try to get better, to improve our game, whatever that ‘game’ is. In every game, there are losers, but in the game of life today, it seems that there are no losers allowed, just winners. How do we build resilience in our youth if they are never allowed to lose, to strive harder the next time … and finally to win. To me, that is how self-esteem and resilience is built, by trying and failing and trying again. It is my opinion that losing builds character and inner strength, which we all need to get by in the real world. Supporting our kids while they learn these difficult life lessons is parenting and preparing them so that they can be ready to face what life has to offer them. Life is not easy but it is worth the struggle, the dusting oneself off and get on with the living. Life is not a straight forward path, as we all know, but has its lows and its highs, a roller coaster at times.

Learning to ride the wave is learning to live with our imperfect selves. This is not failure, however; this is to be a success at life.