The following blog post was written by Peer Advisor Eamonn, a heterodoxic sophomore studying philosophy and international affairs. You can find out more about Eamonn here.
In Praise of Failure: Why the Worst is [generally] for the Best
Though we’d universally prefer another contribution to such riveting themes as “The Intern Files”, “Study A-Blog” or “The World of Dressage[1]”, this week’s post is devoted to the proverbially soft and slimy underbelly of our Peer Advisor canon of wisdom: “Honors Problems”. I suppose that’s an awfully derisive characterization. Excepting snake enthusiasts, soft and slimy aren’t generally employed as honorifics[2].
That was a digression. Sorry. Yet I feel it was an illustrative one. Although we emphasize such laudable mantras as “don’t become overextended”, “know when to quit” and “you don’t need to do everything”, we value these words about as much as Ryan Reynolds does the Green Lantern Oath.[3]
At a university which fixates upon success, Honors students are liable to fetishize it[4]. As well we should, the forceful riposte goes. We were originally identified as possessing capacities deemed exceptional, should our current character not be deemed exemplary? To be less than exemplary is to fail. It is to deny the actuality of our vaunted virtues and sink insensibly into the frothing pit of mediocrity beneath us. That sounds awful, hopefully no one really thinks of it in those terms. I’m tempted to invoke Montaigne’s opinion that “all men are ineluctably stupid”, arguing humanity to be inherently fallible. Yet to do would be as indefensible as it distressing[5]. Failure will inevitably occur, but its effects needn’t be invariably detrimental. I could continue to pontificate upon how success conflates our hubris and conceals our still festering flaws. That sounds unbearably sanctimonious though. I think I’ll instead recount for you a period of my life riddled with failure: first semester freshman year.
As I imagined was the case for many of you, I found high school painless and accolades easy to attain. Although repeatedly warned of how onerous college could be, I was unabashedly blithe for the first month of class, spending more time as a tourist than a student. I remained that way until I received the grade for my first paper, a precis composed for an Introductory Philosophy course. Let’s just say the “C+” jaggedly scrawled across the paper was less than desirable. To my credit, I became a markedly more diligent student thereafter. To my dismay, it didn’t make a difference. No matter how I strained myself, I couldn’t eke out more than a B in either Origins or my Intro Philosophy course. These were the classes I enjoyed. For those I didn’t—Microecon foremost—my work was horrendous enough to make a DMV secretary blush.
I’d experienced setbacks before[6].Yet this was something dreadfully new. My talents were inadequate, my perspective was disoriented and my confidence had been thoroughly emasculated[7]. Every new grade I received was another dull blow to my already broken spirit. To compound what was academically unbearable, my social life was fast going awry as well. Acclimation into the mundane but essential responsibilities of independent living was a haphazard process at best[8], none of the clubs I had joined felt particularly rewarding, none of the girls I attempted to talk to particularly liked me[9] and relations with my roommates weren’t particularly comfortable either. Returning home for Thanksgiving break, I couldn’t identify a single moment of unqualified success over the preceding three months. I had, emphatically and unavoidably, failed.
Kidding, though at that point, I very much would have liked to cut my losses. In frankness, I can’t recall any ballast of stability which enabled me to persevere through the semester. My parents were supportive, my professors solicitous and the few friends I had made, caring. Conclusively though, nothing improved. Still no luck in the classroom, still no luck with the ladies. My final grade for microeconomics was so heinous my academic adviser thought I might be compelled to retake it.[10] I hardly crossed the 3.0 threshold for continuance with the Honors Program. These drear recollections aren’t intended as schadenfreude fodder (but if you need that go for it). Rather their purpose is to establish the context for the two qualities I came to find indispensable in rejuvenating myself academically and socially the next semester: humility and courage.
Humility is to recognize the possibility of failure. Courage is to resolutely persevere despite this possibility. My failures didn’t “teach” me this. They reduced me to it. All other considerations were remote or inconceivable. The will to try and the resolve to keep trying was my last elixir. So I took it. Happily, it was all I required. My mishaps didn’t disappear, though as I adjusted to the rigors of university coursework they did dissipate in frequency and magnitude. What truly changed was my response. Rather than treat failure as condemnation for my inadequacy, I approached it as the opportunity for growth. This maxim—often said and rarely followed—is practical only for those who have dismissed failure as a vice. Adopting humility and courage empowered me to deny failure its ferocity. Failure couldn’t hurt me, because failure isn’t final. Humility taught me to accommodate failure, courage taught me to progress from it.
It’s one thing to discourse on elegant, airy abstractions of virtue. How do you go about practicing “humility” and “courage”? Maybe it’s tempting to treat these traits as fatalistic. We can’t control our failures in finality, so why rebuke ourselves as responsible for them? This would be misguided though. The goal isn’t to accept failure. It’s not even to unencumber ourselves of failure’s burden. Failure should sting, it should prod us sharply, it should rouse us from complacently accepting our immediate limitations. In so doing, failure should be part of a constructive process. This process is a reflective one. It consists in candid, comprehensive self-examination, coupling success alongside failure. The former reveals what we’ve mastered, the latter recommends what ought to be mastered next. Brought to fruition this process tells us where we are, where we’d like to be, and how best to get there. As it would be remiss to write for the UHP without invoking the ancients at some point, let me belatedly harken to Socrates. Before he drank the cup and kicked the bucket, the barefoot sage pronounced to his bewildered companions in the Symposium that Love, for all its virtues, was downright hideous. How could it not be? Bereaved of Beauty, Love is compelled to seek it, to exalt it, and most of all, create it. Failure in my mind, relates similarly to success. Who knows, there’s a lot lost in translation[11]
[1] UHP approval of Dressage section currently begrudged, lack of relevance to and expertise among the student body cited. Minor setback, wait until they see the Olympics.
[2] Hail Hydra
[3] “In brightest day/in darkest night/no evil shall escape my sight/let all who worship evil’s might/beware the power of Green Lantern’s light” I’m not bitter, I just would have preferred a better movie
[4] Don’t read into that
[5] Stick to German philosophy, Descartes thought he was a ghost and Voltaire couldn’t distinguish Xenophon from Xenophanes. Cogito Ergo Done with these Amateurs
[6] One time I wasn’t elected National Honor Society president, it was devastating
[7] Don’t read into that either
[8] Apparently red shirts really do bleed into white socks in the wash
[9] Open to advice
[10] Turns out I don’t…I think
[11] For a lucidly articulated account of such discrepancies in Classical scholarship, review Alan Bloom’s translation of The Republic
