Failure

I found myself feeling deeply uncomfortable at one point this week. I was at a training session at work and, for reasons I won't get into, we were discussing failure. We were asked to make a note of a failure we've had and what we learned form it before sharing it with others.

I immediately knew what my answer ought to be but I brushed it aside knowing I would find talking about it uncomfortable. In the end I selected my GCSE music result instead.

I have fairly respectable GCSEs, an A in Science and a B in eight other subjects. On top of that I got an E for music. I can distinctly remember a conversation with a teacher when discussing my GCSE options and they said that I didn't need to play an instrument in order to do GCSE music. Given that part of the grades is formed by a performance this statement wasn't true and my limited clarinet skills were of little sue. I squeaked my way through an ABBA piece whilst my peers performed classical music masterpieces. I worked hard for other exams but didn't do a seconds work for the music exam and the result was inevitable.

I didn't really care. I prioritised other subjects and didn't put the effort into something that I knew wouldn't matter. We were asked what we'd learnt from the failure and I learnt very little; I suppose I learnt to get more information before I undertake something.

The answer that first came to mind was failing to qualify as a teacher. That was totally different. I cared more than I'd cared about virtually anything before, I'd worked hard for about six years to get there. But nothing I could do was enough and I crashed out of my final teaching placement. I could have tried again but I couldn't face the pain.

The failure hurt. It tore my life apart, every plan I'd ever had was over. It didn't even end there. I knew I had to get a job and filled out countless application forms and failed to receive a callback from the majority of them. I ended up in a few interviews and failed to make an impression in them, feeling so broken that I trying to make myself sound good was nigh on impossible. It took about four months before I finally found someone who was desperate enough to employ me.Still it went on. Now I was working I really needed to be able to drive and so I took my driving test. I failed it and then another and then another. It took the fourth test before I finally scraped through.

It was a rough time. My self-esteem was horrendously low as I had failure after failure. I was completely lost.

They say that time heals all wounds and I'm beginning to think the mysterious 'they' might be right. I recently realised that no-ones asks me about my life before my current job anymore. I rarely think about it and feel like I'm now making a success in my new path.

What did I learn from the failing period of my life? I suppose the main thing is that no matter how low I was feeling and how terrible things seemed, I survived and then thrived. Hmm, that's a great phrase I just coined. It works though. I learned that failure is not an end, it's a beginning. Things didn't go to plan and as painful as that was it worked out in the end.

"Everyone fails at who they're supposed to be. A measure of a person is how well they succeed at being who they are"- Avengers: Endgame