(An excerpt from The Strangest Secret Library available on Amazon)

Chapter 4 The Rewards of Failure

ABSURD as it may seem at first consideration that anyone would solemnly enter into even an unconscious conspiracy to fail, it is a matter of observation that there is hardly one person in a hundred who does not, in some fashion, deliberately cripple and thwart themselves. To understand why this should be so it is necessary to examine for a chapter what may be called, without paradox, the rewards of failure.

The recent widespread interest in all branches of psychology has accustomed us to accepting an idea which, when first offered, seemed laughable: that we are all at some level, engaged most of the time in reverie. We dream either consciously or unconsciously, awake or asleep, of a situation in which we feel we should be happier than we are in real life. Occasionally some childish idea of happiness or success crops up to confuse or hamper us in the business of adult living. Sometimes the dream is of a life of luxurious idleness, the childish Unconscious determined on refusing to leave the safe shelter of the nursery, where all wants were remedied as soon as felt, where warmth and food and love were given freely and unearned. As Emerson wrote, long before we had any technical vocabulary to express that backward turning reverie, long before we knew of “fixations” or of “narcissism” “We do not believe there is any force in today to rival or recreate that beautiful Yesterday. We linger in the ruins of the old tent where once we had bread and shelter.” To some extent this is true of all of us, but less true of the happy and successful adult than of others.

At other times, ludicrously enough, the life-wasting reverie is about success: the mild man is a Napoleon of war or finance, the mouse-like woman a siren. If reality never broke in upon such reverie, the dreamer might be happier, self-absorbed in their silent tale-spinning, than if they were to find themselves in a position to realize some part of it. Such reverie is in itself compensation for a life of dull routine or uneventful monotony. But, the world being what it is, the dreamer must live, for part of their time at least, in the cold atmosphere of fact. This is no Land of Cockaigne that we inhabit: roast pigs do not run about crying “Eat me!” Fruit does not fall from the trees into our mouths. However blissful the daydream we entertain, we must wake from it sometimes and struggle with the hard conditions of real living.

The inveterate dreamer will struggle only just as much as he need, and no more. He will do anything halfheartedly to get his bread and butter. Then, when his daily task is over, he will be back at his dreams again, whether he realizes it or not. He succeeds at only one thing: in clearing away a little space, gaining each day a few hours of free time, for just one purpose – to go on wasting his life. But his dream is happy. It is, for him, a true compensation for his failure in every other relation, and so he continues in it. Yet, since after all happiness is the true goal, he is deluded by not realizing that the smallest success in reality brings with it more happiness than years of reverie.

Nevertheless it is important to remember that the rewards of failure are real in their own sphere, for otherwise we will not brace ourselves to fight them adequately; and there are other rewards of failure besides dreams.

Consider, for instance, that if you try for anything just enough to give yourself some justification for saying that you have tried, you can fold your hands for the rest of your days. You can say humbly that you were tried and found wanting in those qualities which make for real success. This is rather a rare remark, but one of those which can be heard now and then from older failures, usually in a humorously deprecating tone. It will sound very honest and touching; and there is no earthly way in which it can be proved against the complainant that his statement is not fully true.

He has saved himself a lifetime of effort by some means, nevertheless. If you join this group you can watch the struggles of others with an eye half-amused, half-envious, enjoying the results of their successes, but perhaps even more – human nature being what it is – the spectacle of those who fail, and who take up their onlookers’ positions beside you.

Then, “Mankind is very superficial and dastardly,” as Franklin said. “They begin upon a thing, but meeting with a difficulty, they fly from it discouraged”; and why not, asks the Unconscious, when you can try, stop, and feel for the rest of your life that if you had tried just once more you would have made the grade? You can thereupon become a dilettante or amateur, frightfully hard to please by those who go on working, severest of all critics either professional or unprofessional, possessor of some inner knowledge, and able to hint at standards of excellence untouched by those who are still out trying to run the dusty race; standards so marvelous, so unattainable, that failure to reach them is more honorable, you may imply, than another man’s easy success. With not one thing completed, the acclaim you might have received, the enormous financial coup you might have brought off, the masterpiece you might have accomplished, can assume in your reverie, and in the eyes of those who will accept your version of things, almost more importance than the real success would.

Or you can become an abettor and sustainer of more persistent workers and artists, and perhaps that is the friendliest failure, the most successful failure, of all.

But notice that in all these cases you will at the very least have avoided the struggle, the pain, the humiliations that attend outward activity. You will never have to see the object you slaved to bring into being despised or misunderstood. You will never have to feel the rancor of those whom you necessarily surpassed in competition; you will never have to stand the cut of adverse criticism. You will never have to become aware of the malice of those who envy any success, however trivial. You will never have to back your opinions by argument when you are tired and would rather rest for new effort. Or, far deeper and more vital pain, you will never see the discrepancy between the finished work you can do and the work as you had hoped to do it. There is always that discrepancy to keep the honest worker really humble.

These matters of discomfort and pain evaded are important to notice, for when we come to examine the reasons why we so often choose to fail rather than to succeed, they will prove very illuminating. So it is worth understanding that if you fail, you are rewarded by not running the risk of getting hot and tired and discouraged, or sharp-tempered when your co-workers or your materials, whatever they are, seem more refractory than usual. If someone else does excellently in the line you had dreamed of for yourself, you can always believe that, if you had really tried again, you could have surpassed them.

And then, if you can remain inconspicuous, you will not have the experience of outstripping someone you love. This is, perhaps, most commonly the woman’s Reward of Failure, although the children of distinguished parents or the disciples of outmoded masters in any line also know it. Still, it is only right to say that many who dread the experience of causing pain to another are never called upon to meet it; they failed to take into account the generosity of love. So it is often an excuse for not working that is at the root of this inaction, too, not a real matter of compromising with ambition in order to keep a vital relationship unspoiled.

By failing one escapes much gossip and incomprehension, the semi-scandalous talk which most often springs up about those who succeed. To dread this immoderately is neurotic, but this dread does often act as a deterrent to many a success. All vital persons are the target of the curiosity of those who are not vital; but the few whose opinions concern you will know the truth, and the others are of no importance. Yet many withdraw from active life, not to take up an intenser inner life, but merely to avoid the vulgar curiosity of the crowd.

And then, if you have failed not too awkwardly, you are usually more delightful as a companion than a better worker. Those who reach real success are likely to be constant workers. Even in their hours of recreation they frequently are preoccupied with some element of the thing they are engaged in doing. The successful man has less free time, and observes more punctiliously his self-set hours for withdrawing from companionship, than the failure. He can seldom be counted on for impromptu gai