Everyone's Least Favorite F Word: Failure
Failure. What a dirty word. And I say that as college kid who hears more foul language than regular language.
No one wants to talk about their failures or how they haven’t succeeded in some way. We play down break ups, we hide when we screw up at work, we blame others when we get into fights, and any larger failures we try to hide at all costs. It doesn’t matter that failure is a part of life, and that literally everyone everywhere has failed something in their lives, we still assume we must be the worst people in the world and hide it until the last possible moment people have to know.
Recently, I was told I would not be able to join the journalism school here at the University of Oregon. I applied and petitioned and did everything I could think of to get in and then fight the decision, as it was heavily based on my health issues, and they still disagreed. I then decided to become an English major because it was the next closest thing to writing and what I want to do, and felt like I had once again failed. The English major is the butt of every college joke, second only to philosophy majors, and all I could think was that I was going to be an unemployed English major, working as a waitress the rest of my life. This is all far from the truth, but up until recently this has been where my head space was at.
It’s not easy to look at what you were working towards and see it fail. But often times, it ends up being better than you thought it would. As cliche and ridiculous as it sounds, good things really do come fro failures. One night I stayed up until 2am researching jobs English majors can get and found that there were actually way more job opportunities for English majors than journalism majors. They were said to have a larger skill set and be more creative than your average journalism student, and there were far more options than just teaching, which everyone had lead to believe was my only option. The more research I did, and the more conversations I had, the better everything felt. It took me four months to get to this conclusion, but I can not honestly say I am way happier here than I ever was taking classes in the journalism school.
Below I have listed some steps to take to overcome a failure, or perceived failure. They might seem a little ridiculous, but I promise they help.
Throw a Pity Party: Yes you read that right. Have a pity party. Cry about it. Mourn it. Drink some wine (or whatever you drink of choice is) and call your friends and yell about how much this sucks and how upset you are. Say how awful and stupid it is. Yell about the other people involved. Get it all out of your system.
Is it Really a Failure?: Once you have gotten all the anger out of your system, take a step back and see if this is a real failure or just a perceived failure. Did you do everything you could to stop it? Was the decision made without your input? Was there anything you could have done to stop it? Was it out of your hands? No matter how you answer these questions, they will help you come to the conclusion on whether or not it was a real failure. And even it was, the fact that you didn’t try and stop it speaks volumes. Perhaps you were unhappy in that situation and just didn’t realize it.
Lists: There are two lists to make; why you are so upset, and what to do next. Once you have finished the first one it’s time to….
Research: Google it. Did you loose a job? Look for new ones that have things your old job didn’t. Major change/ transferring schools/ fail a class? Look for jobs other majors have gotten, look up people who transferred more times than you have, look up celebrities that failed classes in college (and then new study habits so you don’t fail the class again). Even if you broke up with someone, research those articles that tell you how to get over it and how to learn from it. It sounds cheesy, but those articles really help. It’s all about seeing that other people have been through this too.
Next Steps: Now is when you write your second list; all the things you are going to do next. Even if the first few steps are just moving on and moving forward, thats ok. Just make a plan to help give you direction to whatever is new and exciting ahead of you. You don’t have to follow it to a T, or make it heavily detailed, but give yourself and outline of the next goals you want to reach. It will help you find the silver lining in the feelings of failure.
I hope this helped! Let me know in the comments below what you thought and if you have any other tips to add!
Madey
English Major T-Shirt: Christine Wolfgram