Success, Failure, and exceedingly good cakes

There
seems to be a regular fuss over what a terrible thing it is for a child to
consider itself a failure. If they don't pass an exam, we mustn't tell them
that they failed - they simply didn't pass. Just lately there's been a whole
spate of people queueing up on the radio to say that (a) they were scarred for
life by failing the eleven plus, and (b) it spurred them on to show the
authorities they were wrong, and probably meant they were more of a success
than they otherwise would have been.

There
is a rich, rich paradox there. But before I dive straight into it, I want to
say this: on the subject of success and failure, I think Kipling had it right.
They are both imposters. In this life, we try things. We start as soon as we're
born, our tiny hands gripping whatever they can reach, and stuffing everything
into our mouths. Nobody calls a baby a failure because it tries to eat
something which tastes horrible. But strangely, as we grow up, and try things
which don't work, these things become thought of as failures.

But
how do we measure success? How do we decide what doesn't work, how we've
'failed' when we try them and they don't work out? I think we do make our
personal judgements, which can be based on lots of different criteria - whether
something was fun, whether we made valuable friendships doing it, whether we
gained valuable experiences. the problems come when these personal judgements
are slowly drowned out by the sick judgement of our 'success' culture. This
culture of 'success' has only one criteria on which judgements are apparently
based. That criteria is money.

That
criteria is ludicrous. If you do a job you love which doesn't pay much, are you
a failure? Would you rather be doing something you hate but which earns a lot
of money? Some people may say 'yes' to that, but before you do, consider - a
miserable job means you're miserable for some, I don't know, a third of your
waking life. That has health issues, both mental and physical. It leads to
extra stress, leads to health problems, an early grave, and a lot of bad karma
which you will inevitably offload onto those you love. I see more and more of
my peers moving away from high-earning options into careers they think they'll
enjoy, and they have to be right.

If
we try to apply this to schools, then it's very tempting to think: hey, if
success and failure are both imposters, then why would I worry about failing
at something I haven't even volunteered for? I didn't ask to be here. Why
should I expect to succeed? Why should I want to succeed? Why should that mean
anything?

This
sounds familiar to me. I'm sure I heard it in the mouths of kids when I was at
school. It's a difficult mindset for me to get into - I was always good at
exams, schoolwork came easily to me. It never occurred to me to worry about
success or failure, because I had a lot of success, and I got to like the taste
of it. I chased it for its own sake. It was only much later, when I started to
struggle at university, that I started wondering about what success and failure
really meant.

Success
and failure should be personal. They should be your own judgements, not those
imposed on you by society. But you don't make them up in a vacuum. Things which
offer instant success, instant enjoyment, often pall and lose their attraction
very quickly. Often, we enjoy doing things simply because we're good at them,
and if we're instantly good at something then that probably means it's too easy
and we'll be bored of it within a week. So in deciding what we want, we have to
look beyond the moment. That might mean looking at some distant goal - for
example, saying 'I want to be able to juggle with flaming torches, even though
at the moment I can only just catch a hackysack.' But it might mean something
rather more analytical.  There's nothing
wrong with saying 'I want to be good at this, because I can turn professional
and make a decent fist of money at it.' That applies just as much to maths as
it does to football.

And
enjoyment now doesn't mean anything in the long run. My main hobbies are
singing and sailing. I was forced into both of them, loathed them when I was a
child, but now I get an enormous amount of pleasure from both. I haven't been
brainwashed - I just got good at them. They became fun.

Anyway,
this is getting off the point a little. All I wanted to say was the Kipling was
right - success and failure, when judged by outsiders, are both imposters. What
matters is what you take away from an experience. And that always - always -
depends on what you put in.

Phew. Right. Got that off my chest.