Embracing Failure

If "failure" is a word that can be used to describe a person, it can certainly be used to describe myself.  In my 20 years of life, I've managed to do a lot of failing.  My academic, social, and professional life was littered with failure, as well as every day of my full-time mission.  I constantly failed to live up to expectations that were most likely set only by myself.  To a perfectionist, failure is defeat.  It is so frightening and so unapproachable that most of us live our lives in fear of it, carefully planning every step to avoid its embrace.  We try to pass our lives by walking on a slackened tight-rope of pain-free success.  We persistently lie to ourselves, convincing ourselves that this tight-rope is the "straight and narrow path" until we actually believe it.  We fall off again and again but because of our fear of falling we can't bring ourselves to go any higher.  The Tree of Life has never been reached by people who raise their sails and go wherever the wind wills them.  It has never been reached by those who follow the wider paths, hoping to avoid pain and failure.  The people who partook of Life in this vision in 1 Nephi 8 didn't take a single step with ease, instead we read that they "caught hold", "pressed forward", "came forth", and most interestingly, "fell down".  What we sometimes fail to realize is that in the eyes of eternity, failure is far more important than success.

I think one of the most important lessons we can learn in life is that when we embrace failure, failure refines us.  Stephen McCranie articulated this principle well:  "The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried."  I don't know of anyone in religious history who has failed more times, in more ways, and more dramatically than the prophet Joseph Smith.  His was a terrifying and daunting task, and failure was his close companion.  He had the calling to restore the Church of Jesus Christ on the earth millennia after its loss, and I think we overestimate how much he understood at the time.  I'm amazed by his faith, how he pressed forward and continued acting with the very little experience and understanding he had, despite the high likelihood of failure.  The obvious example is when Martin Harris lost the 116 pages, and we read God's rebuke in D&C 3.  He also lived to see the foreclosure of the Kirtland Temple, the Kirtland Bank failure, Zion's Camp, the Mormon War, Hans Mill, and the little band of saints that he presided over driven from their homes again and again.   When he failed, he was the first to admit it, and that made him the great prophet that he is.  Though his understanding was small at the start, by the end of his life, he understood perhaps more than any prophet before or since.  He embraced his failure, and he learned from it, and he put his trust in the Master, and the Master shaped him into the prophet of the restoration.

Another example that I admire deeply is Peter.  He, like Joseph, was born and raised during a time of apostasy.  However, Peter likely knew much less than Joseph.  He had the incredible faith required to leave profession and family at the simple words: "follow me".  He was very impulsive, and displayed his ignorance often because of it.  Some of Jesus's most stinging rebukes recorded in scripture were directed at Peter, at one point even calling him "satan" (Matthew 16:23).  But one thing that was amazing about Peter is that he was not afraid to fail.  We often criticize Peter to this day for losing faith while he was walking on water.  He saw the tempest and began to fear, and cried out for help.  We forget that Peter was the only of the twelve (and likely the only person ever to live) who had the courage to even try.  Despite the possibility of failure, he trusted his Master and stepped out of the boat during a storm.  And when he feared and failed, he immediately reached out his hand and cried for help from the Master, whereas most of us when drowning in our fears will continue to struggle and gasp for air while He continually has His hand outstretched to save us.  Peter embraced his failure, turned to the Master for salvation, learned from his brief rebuke ("o ye of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" - Matthew 14:31), and became a better man for it.  The climax of Peter's life and personal progress took place the night Jesus was betrayed.  As predicted, Peter denied the Savior three times, and the cock crew.  This time, no rebuke was necessary.  A simple look from the Savior, a few seconds of eye contact, was all Peter needed.  He "went out and wept bitterly" (Matthew 26:75).  After that night, and after the conversation between the resurrected Lord and Peter that is not recorded specifically, perhaps Peter felt that he wasn't cut out to be what Jesus thought he could be.  Maybe it was his feelings of failure that prompted him to try to return to his old life, and "go a fishing"(John 21:3).  We're all familiar with what happened:  Jesus appeared, Peter gave three confessions of love for three denials, Jesus reminded Peter of what He had called him to do, and Peter became a converted Apostle of the Lord.  Peter knew (or was reminded that) He loved the Savior more than he loved the luxury of admitting defeat.  With the grace of the Savior, the refinement from Peter's failure propelled him from an impulsive but faithful fisherman to an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He became a man such that people "brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them." (Acts 5:15).

Success doesn't allow and inspire us to change, it's mostly just convenient.  Failure is what humbles us, what allows us to change, and what allows us to learn.  We shouldn't be afraid of it.  We must realize that "everything we want is on the other side of fear" (Jack Canfield).  We shouldn't live our lives trying to avoid it.  We shouldn't let the probability of failure even be a factor in our decisions.  Failure has always been far more powerful than success.  As Robert F. Kennedy said:  "Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."   And, as Joseph Smith and Peter always understood, "giving up is the only sure way to fail" (Gena Showalter).  I believe that "failure is an event, not a person." (Zig Ziglar).  We are our own greatest obstacles in our mortal journey, it is only our own fear that stops us.  It is only through continually falling and getting back up that we can make our eventual goal.

I could be described as a failure, but so could J.K. Rowling, and Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates, and Joseph Smith, and Thomas, and Peter, and millions of others.  Our Father placed Adam and Eve on the earth and placed the tree of knowledge of good and evil before them, and allowed them to be tempted by satan.  As Nephi explains in 2 Nephi 2:22-27, it was a part of the Father's plan that they fall.  It was only by falling that they could have children, that they could grow and progress and fulfill the purpose of their creation.  They were sent here to fail and to learn from it, and so were we.  From before the creation of the world, a Savior was chosen for us.  One who could live life without failing, but would still feel the pain of failure.  He suffered the consequences of failure so that we wouldn't have to, and so that we wouldn't have to fear it.  He suffered that He may use our mistakes to refine us instead of define us.  When we decide to be like Peter and call out for our Master rather than drown in fear, or when we decide to be like Joseph and continue in faith despite all odds of failure and rejection, there is no true failure.  Because of Jesus Christ, if we follow His gospel, there is no failure.  The path of discipleship has never been nor will ever be easy, and it's a path that involves a lot of falling down.  But because of Him we can always get back up.  As long as we're on the path or decide to get back on the path, we can embrace failure, and we will reach our goal.