On Failures

My book club failed. I wanted it to work - I was consistent, marketed it regularly, played with different types of books and kept trying for over 2 years. But it never seemed to gather more than a person or two and rarely the same ones.

It’s embarrassing to admit failure. It almost goes against my nature as an American. But the truth is, we all fail and maybe failure has something vital to teach us about death?

Oxford Dictionary defines failure as "lack of success" and "the omission of expected or required action". Can we take the judgement out of the word failure? Maybe a lack of success isn't inherently negative. Same with "omission of expected action" - is that a euphemism for aging? Can we see our failures as just that - failures - without assigning shame?

Because we can't - no matter how hard we try - avoid failure any more than we can avoid death.

So how can we practice failure? Can leaning in to what failure feels like and it’s necessity teach us something about acceptance? Does practicing failure better prepare us to move, in a spirit of acceptance, toward aging bodies, failing organs, slipping minds and shaking hands? How can we surrender our bodies, as they begin to fail, if we haven’t gotten comfortable with the surrender that failing teaches us?

I'm going to start by owning my failures without shame. My book club failed. One of my closest friendships ended earlier this year. I got so burned out and overwhelmed that I couldn't follow through with my work. My apothecary might have been a pipe dream. I am practicing accepting so many failures. Maybe that's okay - maybe it's okay that these things lacked success and that the expected or required action isn't here. Maybe it's okay to fail because I’m practicing accepting what is and letting go to free up that space for the next thing ahead, even if I can’t see it clearly just yet. Maybe the whole point of living is to practice the skills I will need to do my business of dying, hopefully one day in the far future. Maybe?