In this op-ed, Sarah John explores why failure can be a good thing, and why we need to fail more often.
When I was in middle school, my school’s motto was “Failure Is Not An Option.” It was in big letters, emblazoned on the walls. It was on our notebooks. It was on our shirts. The phrase, which comes from the movie Apollo 13, hearkens back to the idea of persistence. The full quote is meant to show that if we push ourselves, anything is possible.
I remember this all vividly because I hated that motto.
So, when during my eighth grade year, months before commencement, they said the prompt for class speaker auditions was to write about the school motto, I was ready — and incredibly excited. I sat down at my house’s desktop, opened up a Microsoft Word document, and wrote and wrote and rewrote until I had a draft that I felt really hit at the heart of my feelings. The motto, I said, missed an important point. Failure is an inevitability. We fail because we try, and we have to try. And, as I stated in the speech, failure is nothing to be afraid or ashamed of. “There are still flowers blooming at rock bottom,” I wrote.
After I finished, I went to some of the English teachers at my school to ask them to read it over before submission. The response was great. My teachers emphatically assured me that it would be the best speech the school had ever had. The day came and I submitted it to the essay contest, confident that I had a strong chance at winning. After some days, the semi-finalists in the competition were announced. I hadn’t even made the cut to go to the next round. I was crushed.
My teachers were shocked. In fact, they were so surprised that they went to the principal to ask why my speech had been rejected. That day, I remember sitting on the desks, legs swinging back and forth as they consoled me. The administrators had told them that they didn't think the superintendent and other higher officials would like it. I had been too critical of the school’s motto and it didn’t give the right optimistic message. They would let me read it to the students instead in an assembly a few days before graduation.
I went home the day I found out the news, and told my family. My brother told me that this was a lesson: what is popular is not always what is best. Failure is not popular, and I would not be winning any awards for advocating for the virtues of it. So I was stuck with two contrasting views. A world of experience that told me failure is how you learn, that I had to pick myself back up, and to swing big even if I would miss. And a life and community that rewarded anything but that.
I still think about this speech often. I try to live by its principles, even though I sometimes fall short. In the years since, I have had my fair share of truly ego-crushing failures, the kind that I still cringe at years later, that keep me up at night when I’m feeling low. Of course, like anyone, some of those failures still haunt me. The world has not changed much since my speech at 13, and I understand why. Success is important to us for so many reasons. Oftentimes, it’s a way of proving worth when we have felt worthless, or a way of protecting ourselves from criticism. Too much attachment to success can mean that, in its absence, we don't know who we are or what we have to offer to the people around us.
But I’m not 13 anymore, and I have been in search of more expansive ways of thinking about failure. Sometimes we fail because we didn’t have the resources, support, or knowledge necessary to succeed. Is failure really something to be ashamed of in those moments, I wonder? I also don’t find myself craving success as much. Instead, I crave spaces where other young women share their failures, with humor and optimism. I scroll and laugh at Tiktok videos where people celebrate their favorite “girlfailures,” the opposite of a girlboss. (The term #girlfailure currently has more than 11.4 million views on TikTok.) I laugh at popular tweets like this one, with almost 145,000 likes, that reads (SIC): “enough girlbosses i need girlfailures. just an absolute loser of a female character. more women who suck!!!!!”
When I’m most frustrated, I look at people I admire who have failed and then later persevered. I assume they, too, would be happy to be called girlfailures. Kurt Vonnegut dropped out of Cornell with terrible grades. There’s a girlfailure. I love watching characters like the protagonists of The Incredible Jessica James, The Edge of Seventeen, and Shiva Baby — nervous and erratic women who eschew Mary Sue limitations, girlfailure supremes. Emily Dickinson had relatively few poems published until after her death, and probably felt, at many times, as much of a girlfailure as the rest of us. The girlfailure community is endless.
I love my girlfailures, and I love failing. I enjoy knowing I was brave enough to try, to endure shame and ridicule and self-disgust, on the off-chance that I might learn something and grow. And I have always felt that is the only way to live. I hope I always will.
