I have always had a very strong love-hate relationship with failure. It is something that is strongly linked to my self-esteem and my self-image. It is something that I have always done my best to avoid and has kept me from taking risks.
Looking back over the past few years I have realized that the times I have failed have been the times where I learnt my most important lessons so far. They were grueling, horrible and necessary points in my life where I had to learn to look after myself and become an adult.
I know for a fact that I need to fail in order to move forward, that's the love part. However it doesn't make it any less daunting. I still hate it.
I've tried many times to pinpoint the moment where I became afraid of failure and failing and I came to realize something significant: we are not taught to fail well at school.
In terms of being a part of sports teams in school, we learn that we either win, lose or draw but the word failure is never used. Perhaps it's hard to tell a group of people all together that they failed to win?
However academically, on your own, failure is something that happens everyday but is never acknowledged. Those who succeed were always praised and rewarded with some kind of award. But if you didn't your work was given an 'F', or in New Zealand a 'Not Achieved' (NA). Sometimes you go lucky and were given a second chance to take the test over again but if you failed again that was it. There's no helping you.
There was always that underlying message that everything you chose to do in school determined your future as a success or a failure. As if something you can't understand is something you've chosen not to understand. Looking back school was a place where you were told that everyone is 'different', 'unique' and an 'individual' but it seems it all stood for nothing if you could not pass the exams made for you and everyone else in the academic subjects that were offered. But what if you weren't good at anything that was offered? Failure was something not to learn from, it was something to be ashamed of.
I count myself as lucky as school was something that came easy to me. I liked what I studied and I love learning so when something came back (that I was good at and therefore should always be good at) with an' NA' stamped at the top it came as a big shock and often rocked my confidence.
The only times that you were encouraged to think on your own was during creative writing in English but then that was also judged to be given a pass or a fail. Even in art, the most creative and imaginative subject that a school can offer, you were taught how to do the same things as years' previous and ended up making something identical to the rest of the class.
In the end, I was never taught how to use failure to my advantage. You either fall in line and do as you're told or you won't conform to the ideals of society and be 'successful' (whatever that means). Now I have carried the fear of failure into my adult life where it has continued to stop me from taking opportunities.
It has taken a long time for me to experience life properly, out on my own, and to spectacularly fail at things. Important things. But I have learned to use those mistakes and lessons and use them in other parts of my life. I now wonder why I hadn't learned this years ago.
I have slowly been teaching myself to think more creatively by using things like Photoshop. I discovered that making irreversible changes to one image may ruin it completely but applying those changes to another could be what makes it distinctive and stand out. Accident is the mother of invention.
It has been those who pursue the creative careers (photographers, designers, filmmakers, actors, musicians, painters) that have gone against the grain, been un-apologetically themselves, who have not gone with the conventions to gain success and have shaken up the world and made you think differently about something. They are the ones who are remembered because of their unique successes but we have never seen the long train wrecks that have been their failures. They often found their place in the world because they weren't good at what we are all 'expected' or 'supposed' to be good at.
With time and my acknowledgement of inevitable failure, I can now admit that I'd like to be an actor. I've always thought I could be reasonably good at it but it's not something I've ever had the confidence to say aloud because I feared failure. What could be worse than failing in front of a countless number of people who can taunt and mock you? Especially with the digital age everything you do has the high possibility of ending up online for everyone everywhere to mock and taunt. I try to keep a level head and listen to my heroes. As Andy Warhol said, "Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art."
I am currently in pre-production for a very small project that I will be acting in. I'm very excited but more daunted and overwhelmed than anything. I want it to be the best that it can be and to hopefully help me move onto bigger and better things within in the film industry, not just in acting. However, should it fall flat on its face, it would break my heart but it would also be an important failure to learn from. The worst thing I could do is let my fear of failing again stop me from pursuing this career.
"Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again, Fail again. Fail better." Samuel Beckett.
One day I will openly and happily welcome failure and look forward to failing. Until then, I still don't like it.
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