Fear of failing haunts us all

The Boston Herald

April 20, 1993 Beverly Beckham

A friend, a newspaper reporter who'd retired to write books, set up the interview. It was a long time ago and a long drive away. I hadn't thought about that interview for years. I’d buried it in the place where hurts and humiliations get locked up.

I don't even remember the interviewer's name. But his words live in granite.

"What makes you think we'd ever hire you, when there are dozens of real writers here in this building who'd kill for the job you’re her asking for?"

Did he say that? "Real writers." Are these words accurate? Or have I superimposed those words on dull, unsharpened ones?

He said it - real writers. I shriveled in the hard-backed chair, like a thing full of air suddenly stabbed, all the lightness pouring out of me.

And yet I looked the same. The shriveling took place inside.

How did I respond? What words did I answer? How did I get up, say thank you, go home?

That you do is the amazing thing in situations like this. That you paste a smile on your face and extend your hand and walk across a room as if you were someone, when you've been told you're not, when you are sure you're not.

This is a victory all by itself.

I was an adult when this happened. It was not my first humiliation, nor my worst. It should have felt more like a slap than a wound, stinging for an instant, but over quickly.

And yet it wasn't. No matter how old you are, no matter how you steel yourself, humiliation hurts. You sit across from someone and, in a flash, with a look, with a phrase, you're turned into a child, who's opened a door without knocking: "Didn't I tell you to always knock!"

What churned this old wound back into consciousness? What brought it to the surface after all these years? Nothing major. Hardly an earthquake, just a couple of trembles of fear, one from a girl going off to college; one from a woman going into the world.

Their words were the same: What if nobody likes me? What if I'm not smart enough? What if I don't do well? What if I fail?

It's fear of failure that I've always believed keeps people from venturing where they want to go. It kept me from writing until I was 30. That's what I've thought, and that's what I've said.

But maybe this isn't quite true. Maybe it's more the fear of looking like a failure than being one that chains our souls. Being berated in front of someone. Being laughed at, undermined, dismissed. Failing in a public way.

For we fail in private ways every day. We fail to do what we set out to do, fail to say the right things, fail to finish a project or write a letter or call an old friend.

Yet it's only the public failures that diminish us, that make us give up and go home.

Who cares if we play the piano and miss a note - unless there's an audience?

Who cares if we trip up the steps - unless someone's watching?

In church on Easter, a little girl about 5 danced to all the hymns. She stood on the toes of her new patent leather shoes, and pirouetted to every alleluia. No one told her she shouldn't. No one snickered at her or said she was weird.

And so she was free to be - to dance without fear of failure, without fear of looking bad.

Children are like this, naturally uninhibited. They ski down a slope again and again until they get it right. They skate, they fall, and they keep at it until they're doing more skating than falling. They know that failing is part of trying.

That is, until someone laughs at them, calls them stupid, says, "I can't believe you can't do that yet." Then unease takes root, and doubt, and the inevitable reluctance to try