What It Looks Like to Fail (And Why You Should Too)

Anyone who has seen the recent Coen Brothers’ film, Inside Llewyn Davis, knows what failure looks like: a lot like early Bob Dylan. Sure the film speaks to a generation of hopefuls and hipsters who want nothing more than their artistic breakout, but it also speaks to a fundamental human concern: our confrontation with mediocrity and failure.

Failure is not a popular word. It’s a little bit like a wad of Bazooka bubble gum: hard to digest. Failure is rewritten largely as the precursor to success in our post-Medieval, American rags-to-riches fairy tale. No one can fail because opportunity is always there and opportunity is always there because we’ve philosophically beaten the natural system.

But we haven’t beaten the natural system and people do fail; they fail to work in the jobs they want; they fail to eat the right foods; they fail to stop smoking. These things have real and lasting consequences, some of which are positive and meaningful, some of which are downright bad. Some things, like failure to become an astronaut, may mean middling away in unachieved dreams or they may mean realizing that physics was never your thing to begin with.

The important thing, however, is in the mindset with which we fail. What makes Llewyn Davis such a poignant protagonist is his inability to overcome forces greater than himself. His dreams are killed by America; but the question is: is he killed by the death of those dreams? The answer needn’t be yes. The reality is that his final au revoir is not a valiant tragic death nor is it an act of redemptive kindness. It’s a deeply symbolic goodbye, but it’s also an empty one, a farewell that invites us to recognize the apathetic approach to our own failures.

That said, apathy isn’t quite right either. What failure means is not just what you make it. That’s very true, but it’s also true that we as human beings exist in a world of limitation. Failure is less an invitation to leave a footprint on the moon and more one to work within a given circumstance. Your failures do define you as much as your successes and that’s okay. Failure isn’t something to be ashamed of or praised; it’s just a part of what defines us. In that sense, humanity means failure. And that’s okay.