The Gifts of Failure

Recognizing the ways we fall short of our ideals can restore our sense of shared humanity, our compassion for ourselves in “no-win” situations, and our forgiveness for our ancestors’ best attempts at survival.

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For a time in my late 20’s, I was a domestic violence advocate. I worked at a shelter for women and children who were escaping dangerous relationships and making a fresh start. Many of the volunteers I worked with had faced similarly daunting experiences themselves, which inspired them to support others.

One woman, “Beth”, told me a moving story about having left her abusive husband when her daughter, “Alia” was still a toddler. Beth had no work experience, no money, no credit, and no extended family to support her. Through public assistance she was able to get a tiny apartment and began training to be a bank teller, the quickest way she knew to make as much money as she could to support herself and Alia. The training program meant she worked all day at her minimum wage job and studied all evening.

“I remember getting home exhausted from work,” Beth told me. “I’d give Alia dinner and then put her in front of the TV while I studied. It broke my heart because I wanted to be playing with her and telling her stories. I knew how much damage this screen time could do to her at such a young age. But getting us out of poverty and giving her options in life was more important.”

I recently shared Beth’s story with a dear friend, “Sarah”, who received a stage 4 liver cancer diagnosis last year and has been struggling to balance cancer treatments, depression, and mortality with the responsibilities of living alone and running a nonprofit for people experiencing homelessness.

After six months lying in bed, hardly eating, and isolating from everyone, Sarah was surprised to hear her cancer was in remission. She now has the hope of more travel and doing the work she loves, but she needs months of nutritional and exercise therapy to help her body recover. She shared with me her regret over having treated herself so poorly all those months.

“It was all in my head,” she told me, despairingly. “The cancer wasn’t nearly as bad as my depression. I was killing myself. I couldn’t – and didn’t want – to do any better. I just felt so horrible, so ashamed of myself for not being able to beat it.”

No validation or encouragement seemed to help until I told her Beth’s story, how she compromised Alia’s development with screen time so she could give her a better life long-term.

“We all want to do the best we can to take care of ourselves and those we care about,” I told Sarah, “but sometimes we’re in a “no win” situation. You tried everything – literally everything – and maybe what you consider your failure was actually what put your cancer into remission: 6 months of bed rest and fasting.”

All this makes me think about my parents, my ancestors; all parents and ancestors. It can be so easy to look at those who came before us and feel baffled, outraged at why they cut down the trees, poisoned the rivers, murdered their neighbors, left us with this world in tatters and these festering psychic wounds. Couldn’t they have taken a stand, made a kinder choice, adopted the long view?

Then I remember how short my tongue can be when I’m tired, how manic my thoughts are when I’m scared. I eat junk food when I’m grieving, watch inane shows when I’m overwhelmed, withhold my truth to protect my standing even when no lives are at stake. I – unlike so many others – have the privilege of knowing the power of mindful movement, prayer and meditation, right speech and action, and still I can forget them in a moment of fear or outrage.

I am the ancestor. I am the ancestor I blame and the ancestor I look to for guidance through what has always been a confounding, trying, and morally gray human existence. If I cannot change the world, how can I expect anyone else to? If I cannot remedy what has been done and continues to be done to peoples, nations, and our planet through human fear, greed, and vengeance, can I at least aspire to be the best parent I can to myself, the best friend I can to others, the best caretaker of the spaces left in my keeping?

This takes knowing that sometimes, like Sarah and Beth, we face impossible choices. Sometimes our only option is whatever appears to be the lesser harm: we burn oil to get us out into the wilderness, we poison our bodies with sugar because we need levity, we break ties with those we love because we lack the strength to carry their burdens along with our own.

Our conviction in what we believe is right, fueled by our perceived failure, often leads to shame. It’s this shame that turns us against ourselves, against reality. And if we are divided against ourselves and against truth, how can we expect ourselves to be caretakers? How we see things may not be the whole truth. Our perceived failure may serve a deeper, unrecognized need. Trusting we’re doing the best we can to be conscientious and caring with what we have restores our sense of agency and dignity in challenging circumstances.   

The ways we fall short of our ideals connect us to everyone alive and everyone who’s come before. The gifts of failure are humility, compassion, and possibly even. We can recognize in others – as well as in ourselves – our shared humanity and our struggle to aspire for something better, however misguided and awkward we may be.

May we all be forgiven our ignorance and fear, for we already live the consequences of our choices every day. May we own the choices that are ours to make, make them as consciously as we can, and walk forward in solidarity with ourselves, grateful for our very best attempts at loving.

Nancy