what did she say? (so. many. f-words)

Lisa had a saying she loved to use and it stuck with me.

She’d been a chemist in the state forensics lab, ages before NCIS, CSI and Bones made forensic science cool.

I met her after that—when she was a high school chemistry teacher…a job that’s probably never been cool.

She’d stand at the front of the classroom, lecturing about chemistry, scribbling on the chalkboard, and cracking goofy jokes.

I sat in the room--forever filled with smells of what kids lit on fire with their Bunsen burners when they were supposed to be doing labs—cringing on her behalf. This old lady was trying to be funny to a bunch of high schoolers.

Of course, I was a sophomore in high school at the time. In retrospect, she wasn’t old so much as maybe 30.

And—also, in retrospect--she wasn’t the Queen of Dorks I believed her to be. She was awesomely authentic. Which, to a 14-year-old, seems dorky.

I had her again as a senior, and we bonded—I was one of the few girls in her AP Chem class. Plus, I’d pushed the administration to have AP Chem offered that year (I’m not sure where I got off thinking ANYONE else was a dork).

Sadly, we lost touch after I graduated.

Also, sadly, I remember almost nothing from chemistry except the equation PV=nRT.

But I do remember her telling us, whenever we’d whine about fairness—which was often, “Fair’s a four-letter word that starts with F.”

It pops up every now and then. Especially when I hear someone claim unfairness that’s unrelated to injustice.

Other four-letter F-words crop up a lot more often—especially in running a business or taking risks.

The biggie is: FAIL

I’m willing to bet a sleeve of Oreos you’ve asked yourself, “What if I fail?” on more than one occasion.

Because somewhere, we absorbed the idea that failure is the WORST THING EVER. And we fear (another four-letter F-word) setting ourselves up to face the worst things.

Which means fear and failure together can stop you from doing the amazing things you want to do.

So, what can you do to keep that from happening?

You reframe failure.

There are a few ways to do this:

🌺 You can see failure is a necessary part of growth, and so failing means you’re growing.

🌺 Similarly, you can see “fails” as information about what doesn’t work for you so that you can adapt.

🌺 Or you can realize that failure isn’t real. I know that sounds kind of “there is no spoon-y” but hear me out…

How did you decide what failure even is?

You probably didn’t decide. I mean, everybody just knows, right?

But why?

Because at some time, someone somewhere decided “anyone who isn’t like me has failed.” And because that someone was privileged and powerful, failure covered quite a lot of ground and people. The idea’s hung around so long that what failure is floats around in the ether.

But longevity of thought doesn’t equal truth.

Neither does in-the-etherness.

How valid are the arbitrary beliefs of some long-dead people who had every advantage?

Just as we get to define for ourselves what success looks like, we also get to decide what we think about failure.

Which leads me to one of my favorite quotes…It’s from Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane,

“You don’t pass or fail at being a person, dear.”

And it’s true.

Failure simply isn’t a valid metric.

So, please, don’t friggin’ use it to measure anything. Especially yourself.

Not passing or failing, just learning,
Kristen

PS. Obviously, I’m in a Neil Gaiman frame of mind, thanks to Good Omens 2 coming out. Of course, I immediately binged the whole season and am now left with no one to talk about it with because no one else I know has gotten to the end yet.  AND I HAVE SO MANY THINGS TO TALK ABOUT. Sigh.