Llloyd Jones (who tragically/hilariously failed to graduate university because of library fines) once said that ‘’the men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed.’’ We’ve all heard a lot of quotes like this growing up (though rarely from people who failed to graduate because of library fines). Winston Churchill said that, “success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” That ‘the path to success is paved with necessary failure’ is maybe the commonest of admonitions when things go wrong.
Likewise, the uber-successful always, at some point, seem to credit their success with their own willingness to make mistakes. And yet for some strange reason, I’d still rather win.
Can Harry Potter help?
If you’re anything like me you probably don’t go looking to JK Rowling for advice on most of the important matters in life (except, if you’re like me, at Halloween). However, in the Spring of 2008 Harvard University did. She was asked to address the graduating class. I imagine more than a few Harvardians feel a kindred connection to the magically-gifted characters at Hogwarts. (And yes, they really do call themselves ‘’Harvardians”).
In her speech Rawlings discussed failure and imagination, and (surprise, surprise) the necessity of failiure. Her insights are fresh and worth reading (or watching). I’ve listed my favorite below the video.
J. K. Rowling On failure:
[For her]… failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.
You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.
The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.
J.K. Rowling on imagination:
Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the willfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.
What is more, those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.
Greek author Plutarch: ‘’What we achieve inwardly will change our outer reality.” That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
My two cents
All of this actually makes me think about politics –about how the socialist imagination is rooted in an understanding of inevitable failure. (It’s not inevitable all the time, but sometimes).Whereas the capitalist (fiscally right-wing) imagination is rooted in an understanding of what it takes to be successful. The two sides focus on different aspects of success (freedom from harm and suffering, versus the freedom to succeed) and each perspective carries its own limitations and advantages.
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