Lessons From Failure

Sometime in 2023, I shared a quote on X (previously Twitter). Here’s the interesting thing: it’s a quote from a book I have never read. But, like the quote itself suggests, it isn’t one that is supposed to be quoted from a book or whipped up on an inspirational basis, it is one that is best experienced.

The thing is, failure is not an easy topic to talk about. Nobody wants to be seen as a specialist in failure, and thus no one wants to claim authority in this regard. Neither do I. I believe my experience with failure pales in comparison to many people’s, but I have experienced my fair share, and despite how difficult it is to talk about it, there are still some important lessons we can all take away from failure.

I believe the most important lesson we learn from failure is “grace”. This is something we usually don’t recognize until we have experienced it ourselves. Here’s what I mean: Most of us have a simple, reductionist view of life—“If you fail, it’s because you didn’t read”, “If you’re poor, it’s probably because you’re not hardworking enough”, “If you miss out on an important memory, it’s because you either didn’t value it or didn’t commit it to memory enough”. On the surface, these statements appear true, or at least they seem easier to accept when flipped: “If you don’t read, you will fail”. So, when someone fails, it’s assumed they didn’t do the former.

When I entered university, I had this very same mindset: “What do you mean you failed? You probably played away your time or didn’t value your education enough to put in the required effort”. “People celebrating being graded 50 in an exam? Eww!”. It also didn’t help that I was a high flyer. For exams graded over 100, I aimed for 80s and 90s and achieved them most times. I just couldn’t fathom why people would settle for less.

Here’s the thing: most people with these beliefs genuinely believe them, because they simplify life, making it easier for them to interpret and navigate. However, the challenge with broad statements like these is that they don’t accommodate nuance—because nuance lives on the edge (where I have been mostly these days, pun intended). This isn’t to debunk or nullify the truth in those statements, because, truly truly (I say to you), as a student, if you don’t read or study, chances are you will probably fail, and that’s a high probability. This truth translates to many other things. However, failure teaches you that, while effort is crucial, sometimes and many times, there are many other factors can cause it and this does not include lack of effort.

It wasn’t until my third year in university that I truly understood this. I didn’t need to do anything extraordinary; I just had to prepare my reading schedule from the beginning of the semester and diligently read my books. But something changed. For some reason, I wasn’t getting the same results as I had before. To my simple mind, the only explanation was that I probably wasn’t putting in my best. In response, I decided to put in extraaaa effort. But here was the challenge: the more effort I put in, the more the results I greatly sought eluded me. Efforts that previously earned me 70s and 80s were now yielding 50s, 60s, and, at best, 69s that still got downgraded.

It was during this time that my eyes were opened to others around me who were in similar situations: putting in their best effort, trying hard and harder, some even harder than I did, but still not getting results. Some even had to retake exams. I learned compassion. I learned to give people grace, that just because something comes easily to you and not to others doesn’t mean they didn’t put in as much effort. As my Bible puts it: “The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all”.

Sometime last year, I broke up with my ex. A couple of weeks ago, during a chat with my friendship group, they were “whining” me about my serious girlfriend from before (haha, if you recognize those discussions). Someone said, “Next time, before you make a move like that, be sure you heard God properly” and I totally understood where he was coming from because his perspective came from the truest intentions. Prior to that experience, this would have been my default response to anyone in a similar situation. However, as they say, experience is the best teacher. I’ve now learned that so much happens on the edge, and life can’t always be interpreted with the simplest explanations.

“I want you to be successful, and I want you to earn it. But realize not all success is due to hard work, and not all poverty is due to laziness.”

PS: My circle is a God-centric and believing one, as I am myself, so thoughts like these are not out of place.

In addition to grace, failure has taught me something else, something we really need to learn, even though it’s tough: the ability to fail even more😂. This is interesting because I started this essay by mentioning how no one likes to lose, including myself. But the interesting thing is that we need to learn how to lose, fail, and keep trying again. Last year, Roger Federer gave a commencement address at Dartmouth College (link here) that I found fascinating. He mentioned how he isn’t recognized as one of the greatest of all time in tennis by winning every match, game, or competition. Instead, it’s by his continued effort, time and time again. “For you to be great at anything, you need to get comfortable with losing”. So, how do you fail without failing? Or how do you get comfortable with failing without failing?

In my personal observation, those at the top of their careers often have the lowest win ratios at the start of their journeys. You need to take so many shots in the beginning, many of which you’ll miss, fail miserably at, or fall short of, but you have to learn how to fail and deal with failure while still pressing on. As I often say to my friends, “most people won’t care how many shots it took you to win, they’ll only care that you won”.

Maybe what I’m trying to say in many words is this: failure teaches resilience. It teaches you to keep moving in the face of adversity, even when it seems nothing is yielding results, not to give up or give in too early. The first time you fail, it will most definitely affect you deeply, perhaps to your core. It may cause you to doubt everything you’ve believed about yourself, your dignity, or even your personhood, especially if your sense of self is tied to your ability to achieve excellence. Getting comfortable with failure helps you detach from this mindset. Your sense of self and personhood is not tied to success or failure. A bad day is not a bad life. You just need to keep moving, striving, and making an effort. All you need is that one big break.

Now that I’ve exhausted the serious lessons we can learn from failure (not an exhaustive list, just the most important ones I can muster at this point), there’s one more lesson, albeit a funny but nonetheless important one: failure gives you interesting stories to tell. Think about it, some of your personal most captivating stories most definitely came from moments of adversity. Were they funny in real time? Definitely not. But in retrospect, they often are. And unless you want to be the boring uncle or aunt who never has a funny story to tell, this is another reason to optimize for failure. 😂 So fail more today and thank me tomorrow.

The summary is: not all failures are fatal and failure is never easy to deal with, no matter how many times you’ve failed. Some failures will still paralyze you and hold you in a chokehold. Yes, you’ll be disappointed. Yes, you’ll be pained. Yes, you may need to take time off to gather yourself. But what you can never do is stop trying. Till next time, shalom! ✌🏾✌🏾

Glossary:

• pov: Point of view
• whining: A type of conversation involving exaggerations, sarcasm, and fun-making (of Nigerian origin)

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