Thoughts on Failure

I failed a class in college. Accounting 333: Advanced Spreadsheet Applications. It was basically a class on how to program for Excel in Microsoft VBA. Funnily enough, I liked the class. I liked programming. I failed for a lot of reasons. The biggest one was probably my own laziness--I took the class during my second-to-last semester and was getting burned out. I didn't work as hard or as effectively as I did for my first six semesters. I had other issues as well--I was coming out of a rather nasty bout of depression (I got on meds about a month or so into the semester). Not only was I sick of school in general, I hated my school.

Even so, failing a class was a heavy blow for me. I was used to As with the occasional B. Seriously, the worst grade I'd ever gotten in my life was a B. You can imagine the shock. It was a hit to the ego as well as the GPA. I retook the class the next semester (and passed, thank the FSM). But I did learn some things.

First, I learned that there are some things in life that I do have to put lots of time into. Learning has come pretty easily to me most of my life, and I was accustomed to being able to BS an A or a B if I didn't like the subject matter. I wasn't able to do that with Accounting 333. I had to work at it.

Second, I learned that failing doesn't make you a failure. The thing that failing does do is show the kind of person you are by your reaction to it. What did I learn about myself? I learned that I'm a perfectionist. ("This F is a black mark on my LIFE!" ) I learned that I needed to quit being a lazy bum. And I learned that things that you think are the end of the world, really aren't the end of the world. Really. Most of the time.

Thirdly, I learned that I need to apply the generosity I give others to myself as well. I've had friends and roommates who failed classes, and I always told them, "that sucks. It's okay though. Sometimes it takes a couple tries to get something right; it doesn't mean you're dumb. Just try again." But I didn't apply that to myself. That was actually pretty arrogant of me. What, other people might need more time to learn things, but I don't? Shut up, former self. You're full of it.

Finally, I learned that I needed to stop basing so much of my self-worth on my accomplishments. It was something I did subconsciously, and it was an easy thing to do because a lot of stuff came easily to me. But it doesn't say much about me if I'm good at things that come easily to me, does it?

In the end, failing Accounting 333 was a good thing for me. I learned some things that I might not have, had I passed the class with flying colors. Humility is a hard lesson to learn, and I still suck at it sometimes, but it's important.