Failing Gracefully

Written by Nia Mahmud

Graphics by Ella Swenson

I’ve been throwing darts at boards and watching as they clatter to the floor.

This is the only explanation for this feeling of trying and failing. This relentless game of spinning until I can’t see straight, reaching until my fingers fall. Previously, I aimed for the inner bullseye. When I missed, I aimed for the outer bullseye, a small compromise. Again, all the darts could do was fall. All I could hear was the echo of metal against concrete, although such a combination doesn’t even produce an echo. Now, I am desperately hurling darts at boards and hoping it lands somewhere. I’m hoping I can still end up somewhere worth being.

I never thought failing was something that needed to be learned. Success is earned, practiced, and perfected. Failure, though. It had always seemed like a dire affliction. The worst possible fate. I’ve grown up with a fear of dropping glass mugs, putting too much flour in cakes, and getting a B on tests. In the wise words of Taylor Swift, “I’ve never been a natural; all I do is try try try.” So if all I can do is try, I’m going to try harder than anyone. Be more desperate to avoid mistakes than anyone. I’m not just fearful of failure, I’m fearful that every trivial mistake is damning.

The growth I’ve undergone in the past year is a direct result of my perceived ‘failures’.

In October 2021, I self-published my debut poetry collection. This was an overwhelming success on paper. In reality, my skewed perceptions of success and failure resulted in disappointment once I had published my book. This wasn’t something I did on a whim: it had been my dream since I had first learned to read. I wrote and edited those poems for a year and a half. I try, try, tried as I always did. And I was successful. But for the first time, that wasn’t enough.

Before publishing my book; there were three states of being. Trying, succeeding, or failing. Now there is a fourth category. Stillness. After I published my book, there was nothing. I had just succeeded, I wasn’t failing, and I didn’t know what to try next. This was the first time in my recent memory that I was simply still. I was uncomfortable in this space. I didn’t know who I was without doing something. This reality was unsettling to me.

More unsettling, however, were the subsequent failures. It’s almost like my book was meant to be a cushion (albeit a very flat, ineffective one) to protect against an onslaught of failures.

These weren’t normal, everyday failures, either. It was college decision season. The culmination of my high school experience and all of my little mistakes staring me back in the face, just as damning as I had always deemed them. A failed test in chemistry reappeared as a rejection letter from my dream school. My decision to leave debate after four years of competing came back to haunt me when I was continuously rejected, deferred, and waitlisted. I was receiving world-shattering rejection letters once a week for a month. I can’t explain how disheartening this was. I tried, spun, reached, did a little song and dance and none of it was enough.

If trying isn’t enough; what is?

People kept telling me that I would end up wherever I’m meant to, everything happens for a reason; you know, the things you say to any high school senior who’s had their dreams shattered. It’s not that I didn’t believe it, it’s that I didn’t care. All I wanted was for all that effort to mean something.

It would be easier if I believed I deserved an acceptance. I can imagine it. Me, receiving the rejection from my dream college, the ‘sorry, you’re probably disappointed, but like, we’re super competitive’ message. Me, rolling my eyes, laughing, shutting my laptop, and thinking ‘their loss.’ But I never thought I deserved it. Instead, I sat in an endless loop of self-resentment, tallying up every mistake I had made over the past four years. Just like I didn’t believe I deserved the success of my book’s publication, I didn’t believe I deserved the college acceptance I desperately longed for.

In the weeks following back-to-back rejections, I became convinced that an acceptance wouldn’t have made a difference. I was using these successes and failures, every accomplishment or mistake I had ever made as a measure of my goodness. I don’t examine myself with any humanity. The rigor with which I study my worth is awful, and it took college rejections to make me realize it.

And there was my book again. My sole success in the midst of all this failure. “I’m really surprised you didn’t get in, Nia.” my friends would tell me, “I mean you wrote a book! Why wouldn’t they accept you?” They thought I deserved my book’s success, they thought I deserved to share in the success of college acceptances they were experiencing.

That’s just it. I was the only one who saw my rejections, my mistakes, as irredeemable. I was the only one who couldn’t offer myself any grace. My friends could see it as it was; just a rejection. Just a school that didn’t accept me. Not the end of the world, not a secret message detailing my every personal failing. It didn’t speak to my character, the effort I had put in, or my worth as a human being. By giving myself the kindness to see me as my friends and family did, I began to fail gracefully instead of in a flurry of motion. I’m sitting in the elusive fourth category and I’ve never been happier. I am still and it is all I need to be.

I know I’ve spoken about all this negativity, and how failure felt unbearable. And it was. But it was also so freeing. I’m finally learning to give myself the grace I so freely give others, the grace my friends so freely give me.

Trying is not enough. I now know what is. Stillness, self-acceptance. I am failing gracefully, and I’m so appreciative of having had the opportunity to learn how.