The Beauty of Falling Flat on Your Face

Alright gang, here’s the deal.

Today.

We.

Are going.

To talk.

About.

Failure.

WOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

YEAH!

GET EXCITED!

So you've probably heard a lot about failure before: you need to get back up and try again. You need to have a growth mindset and failing is a time of learning.

But we, as human beans, need to be continually reminded of truths. Unfortunately, we forget things, like, all the time.

Besides, that’s not really what I’m getting at today.

So let’s make a deal. I’ll do the writing, and you do the reading. Unless you have to go pee or something, then go do that.

Shake on it?

Okay, you did it, you can’t go back on it now.

Here’s the outline of this blog post: I’m going to talk about one terrible moment in my life and then link it back to the big picture, and you can proceed to think whatever you want about either me or the topic. Cheers.

The “Moment”:

The summer before sophomore year, I tried to make the school swim team.

Here’s the thing: I was extremely traumatized at the thought of someone from my school seeing me going to practice, because the pool that I was going to was the same one that swim teams practiced at. And yet, I needed to go practice, because it was only at the pool that I could improve, and I really, really wanted to make the swim team.

So one day, I went to practice—but not with my usual group. No, it came time for me to unlock a new level in the game: to squad up with a highly experienced league of athletes, all with more experience than me, smiling during workouts because they were used to the screaming fire of their muscles.

I got through the dryland exercises okay. That was fine. But once we hit the water, things got pretty nasty.

The warm-up was easy for those around me, I’m sure. To this day I don’t exactly remember what the instructions were—but I knew we were supposed to swim a relatively far distance in a relatively short amount of time. The exact statistics have been, I suppose, blocked out by the subconscious child within that demands to know why I am typing these words.

It was fine at first, as many things are. I went last in my line of people. My strokes were swift, sure, my heartbeat within control. I was like the swimmers around me, their arms slashing through the pool, cutting water into little ribbons. I was strong. I was fast. For several lovely seconds, I hovered in the lukewarm space of adequacy.

After one flip turn (a swishy underwater backflip used to change direction), I was already starting to flag. I don’t think the adrenaline (which was supposed to help) or the panic (which most definitely wasn’t) made me any swifter. A paralyzing fear that I was going to be humiliatingly lapped crept into my mind, choking my common sense.

If you are not a swimmer, let me paint a picture for you: you are on literal fire despite the fact that you’re submerged in gallons and gallons of water and other people’s spit. You can’t breathe when you want to. You can’t slow down when you want to, because people are at your tail, and you must stay ahead. Your lungs squeeze and burn, vines growing all along the working tendons and sinews in your arms and legs.

So, I stopped at one end of the pool lane and asked to go to the restroom, face as hot as Pompeii. The coach let me go and I dragged myself to the toilets, sopping wet and trailing a track of chlorinated despair.

Perhaps people didn’t see me lifting myself out of the pool because they were so busy finishing their warm-ups, their faces dipping in and out, their arms catapulting, but that didn’t matter so much. I saw.

I still remember those few moments in the bathroom stall, trying to catch my breath and convince myself to go back outside. They were among the worst in my entire life. I was wet, tired, and alone; I felt like I was in a sports movie, you know—one of those motivational ones? Where the hero pushes him or herself on no matter what?

But even as I stood there trying to psyche myself up, to be brave, to go back to the eyes and the pushing arms and propelling legs that were so much faster, so much better than me, I was so afraid.

Now, you may have all the athletic prowess in the world, and I applaud you if you do—but I am sure that you have felt, at some point in your experience, some kind of inadequacy before. And you could say that, plus a heart that was beating as fast as a hare and a premature stroke, was somewhere in the arena of what I was feeling that day.

Alright, resume: after I knew I couldn’t push the minutes anymore, I opened the stall door and walked back out to the pool area, the smell of water suffusing my senses.

Recall—I was terrified out of my wits, thinking I was about to endure some of the most painful physical strain I’ve encountered up until then.

Fortunately, the coach, alerted of how I wasn't used to this level of swimming, stopped me and told me that I could go to an easier group.

Oh, dear reader—the relief. THE RELIEF.

I know some of you guys are probably reading this and thinking about the absolute bliss and simplicity of my life, that out of all the trying experiences that are out there, I chose swimming with a few strangers who I will probably never see again.

I understand.

I have no doubt I will see harder things, and I am glad of it.

Failure does not only teach us what we could have done different, nor does it only teach us to persevere. It teaches us to become more us.

In my case, up until that day at the pool, never before had I had such utter insecurity coupled with the complete, all-consuming embarrassment of having that insecurity reaffirmed. But it wasn’t just a funny story I could tell in a rocking chair on a porch decades later—it was an important moment.

Experiences, pain, and regret deepen the humanity within us. They build layers and multiplexes of who we are, of what broke us and what remade us, hammering us together like a blacksmith striking the red-hot blade.

I don’t know that I would be the same person if I hadn’t hyperventilated in that bathroom stall, hadn’t mourned the loss of time, hadn’t worried over my responsibilities, hadn’t waged war with fatigue at night doing homework, hadn’t regretted and pushed and suffered and been cast down. I am glad for the eyes. I am glad for the tears. I am glad for the judgment, for the advice, for the differences I have sensed between myself and others.

I need it, for without it—

I would not be as me as I am today.

So, failure then, that old foe, that old friend, that which we’ve been taught since young not to fear but still do: it makes me authentic. It makes you authentic. And it can make for some fantastically interesting stories, many months or years down the road. Keep the clichés about failure: the relentless trying until you achieve your goals, the endurance, the teaching moments. They’re true. But also remember that failure serves another purpose—the building of empathy and you-ness.

I trust you’ll take my vulnerability in stride. Thanks for fulfilling your end of the bargain.