Failure and What Comes Next

• Author: Sarah A. Sutherland
• Date: December 24, 2019

People have been talking more about failure in recent years, and they have been listing the things that haven’t worked out for them on social media or in failure resumes. I have been thinking about this too. I confess I don’t feel comfortable broadcasting a list of my failures here because we live in a judgemental world, though I assure you they happen. That said I think I am relatively comfortable with failures (presumably as a result of regular exposure), so I thought I would take this opportunity of writing a column that will be published on Christmas Eve when almost no one is listening to do the writing equivalent of whispering into the hum of people worrying about their own lives to say something about it.

Firstly, I propose we narrow the definition of failure. We approach so many things in life as a moment for potential failure, but just because everything we try, suggest, or work on, doesn’t end up as planned doesn’t mean we have failed. Failure sounds so final, and going a different way than you initially planned can just be approached as learning something that helps you move forward, so consider that:

• Applying for a job and not getting it ≠ failure
• Applying to a school and not getting in ≠ failure
• Writing a book and not finding a publisher ≠ failure
• Initiating research and not finding what you thought you would ≠ failure

As long as you pick yourself up and try something, you just found something that didn’t work for you the way you hoped it might.

Some of the best advice I ever got was from a friend and colleague some years ago. I was designing and publishing knitting patterns as a sideline (I would take it as a favour if you don’t talk to me about knitting, I ruined it for myself). I figured that when starting a creative endeavour I should anticipate most people would reject my proposals...