The value of failure

When a lot younger than I am now, I used to go to school. School I must admit it was a drag, seeming nothing more than a glorified child minding service and in many ways this was true and is true also today.  The class sizes were ridiculous at secondary school (11-16 years age) they were in the region of 30 to 33 pupils each. The school was a state ran which probably says it all.  I went in it and came out of it having failed to achieve a single pass in any of the exams I took. The passing grade was considered to be a C.  Whereas I got 4 Ds and 2 Es, I was unlucky to say the least.  However, saying unlucky is probably something said when not understanding the value of failure. To pass something first time is wonderful, because it is as a result of an accumulated effort, it means you don't have to do the same thing again, you can move onto the next stage in your life. You're happy, elated and over the moon, if you were a cow you'd literally jump over that moon made of cheese, confidence effuses from you like sweat in the sahara desert. Everything momentarily changes and the future looks bright for the future signals opportunity. Whilst failing is a sad thing, it is a heart wrenching thing to feel down and not valued, it knocks self esteem for six.  The emotional down is as low as the emotional high as someone who is successful.  However, it is your personal mindset which determines where your life is going to end up.

In them olden days youth were judged by the number of O levels they had when leaving school.  If you succeeded in getting between 4 and 6 O levels a good job was awaiting around the corner. I had none, looking for work and getting a job was difficult. I ended up being unemployed for a year. It was the worst time of my life, nearly every penny of my benefit money was given up as keep money so I was a pauper.  My mother lived off state benefits and had no connections.  My step father was mentally ill after a break down from the burden of debt my mother put him into.  She then managed to kick him out of the house and get rid of him by divorcing.  He was a simple man and didn't know how to read.  When I looked around me and compared myself to others I had a lot of resentment and hate.  I could see people going to work in the morning and I knew I could do their jobs, I had brains but they weren't shown through passing exams.   I knew there was more to me than joblessness and depression.  Depression and poverty in a family setting is debilitating. It was a desperate time to say the least and there was no help coming from home or family.

When I tried looking for jobs employers asked for experience, but I had no experience so didn't attempt to apply.  Somehow as if by luck I managed to get to work in a shoe shop, it was from there my working life began. As for the term "career" this is a word I despise, because it assumes you have connections and gateways and opportunities, those who can use this term are a breed of human being outside of my own small circle.  Just like the term "apprentice" which must of been a word careers advisers talked about, I never heard of anyone who managed to get on of these posts.  If they did it was well known they to would of been on shit wages.  Yet even being an apprentice would of been doing something with my life, it would of meant being occupied and feeling good about doing something. The value of work is a boundless thing it is more than just the money gained at the end of the month.

Something happened to me because I still wanted to get a job in an office, I had enough of working with the general public of being forced to ask them if they would like a polish or cleaner with their shoes.  I hated targets and the atmosphere the British Shoe Corporation management.  It was clear, hit your target be good or we will sack you.  Only if all staff had a bad day and didn't hit their targets did they accept it had been a bad day.  Blame it on the weather.  Like come on, it's a shop, people choose to walk in or not, and certain ethnic groupings who walked in our shop were not going to purchase polish or cleaners at all, they could barely speak English. The thing that happened to me was always there. It was ambition, ambition to be recognised and accepted in society for not being a failure and it was as though failing exams and having a shit job is how you are measured. It was then over a period of about fifteen years or more I went to evening classes with no exam passes and ending up with a degree and a post graduate degree.  My education cost money, time and a long term perseverance which had been acquired from learning the lesson of failure.  At work I then learnt the lesson of dead man's shoes which hangs in the air like a solid cake which you could eat, except it is as hard as rock and you're likely to lose a few teeth if you do try and take a bite.

I come from a part of society which would call themselves working class, or common.  I am not technically a cockney but close to it. The mark of people from my group is how they speak and use the English language. There used to be a lot of slang in it but there is not so much now. As time has gone past when I hear people who take on a strong cockney like accent it makes me think they have chosen to stay where they are in life and not to improve themselves. They have accepted from a young age what they will be like and carry on down that same road, not changing or doing anything different with their life.  This is not to say some of them have not been successful, for they can be it's just they chose to stay in a mindset which they don't want to move away from.

To fail at anything is probably the most important lesson a person can learn from, it has such value and can be so character building I can not state in words adequate to describe.  Then what it takes is guts and determination to come through failure and learn and to still carry on despite everything else which pops up to pull you down.  A funny thing though is watching programmes like the X factor or Britain's got talent and hearing stories of people who have had difficult lives and how by being a  success at singing or some other talent they have their life will change.  These sob stories become a pain to listen to and in the back of your mind or not your shouting at the TV "come off it mate, get on and sing." It is as those such persons are doing the best to get the sympathy vote rather than to showcase their talent.  I dislike this very much.  In the same way, I would prefer to be judged for who I am and what I have made myself.  To be judged on my own opinions and intelligence which is something I hold in more esteem than the acquired status of those with silver spoons in their mouth.

Failure is important as it teaches a great lesson, a painful lesson and the best part of this lesson is moving out and away from failure and doing something about it, not wallowing in it like a hippo in mud.