It's really quite ironic when you think about it. An award-winning journalist, who also hosts a successful podcast series and is a best-selling novelist (do I also need to mention that she received a double first at the University of Cambridge?), decides to write a book on failure. By quickly typing the name 'Elizabeth Day' into Google, it would seem that this woman has achieved anything but a reputation for failure. Yet, that is not what Elizabeth Day wants you to think - indeed, it is quite the opposite.
I'm a little late to the game here: 'How to Fail: Everything I've Ever Learned from Things Going Wrong' by Elizabeth Day was published in March of 2019, but with the abrupt cancellation of my A-Level exams, along with what has now been a painfully long period in lockdown, I have finally been able to carve a bit of time out of my daily routine to read this playfully witty, yet tragically personal and heartbreaking, exploration of what failure means to the author and, most importantly, what failure should also mean to us.
As Day rightfully notes in the first chapter: 'Failure is viewed as the end point, not a necessary staging post on a journey towards greater success.' In signposting this notion from the outset, Day paints a picture of how modern society seems to understand, and in doing so misinterpret, the connotations attached to failure. It doesn't take much brain power for any one of us to come up with a single memory of failure - the humiliation, the regret, and that all-so-painful feeling of just wanting to give up, as if you have run into an impenetrable brick wall.
However, Day is very quick in shattering this false conception of failure, hoping to teach us that it's most certainly something worth striving towards... Okay, perhaps this concept needs a bit of explaining. Day is by no means advocating failure. She is not suggesting that we all drop what we're doing and stop working towards our greatest ambitions and dreams of success. Instead, she normalises failure and depicts it as an inevitable and shared experience, in the hope that we as readers can open ourselves up to our own failures and vulnerabilities. Perhaps Day expresses this idea more elegantly when she states: 'I have evolved more as a result of things going wrong than when everything seemed to be going right. Out of crisis has come clarity, and sometimes even catharsis.'
Day's unique writing style is also worth commending, striking a balance between surface-level humour and a heart-rending, autobiographical memoir. In doing so, she establishes a genuine and personal relationship with readers, as if her heartfelt story is unfolding over a good chat and a cup of coffee; she really seems more like a close friend than an author. Day's especial writing style comes to fruition in her painfully raw account of her failed IVF cycles, miscarriage and subsequent divorce. Even though Day notes that not becoming a mother is by no means a failure for a woman, she also exposes us to the contradictions of her conflicted mind, noting the immense amount of pressure placed on the modern woman to get married and start a family; women who do not comply with these expectations, she notes, are often perceived as weird, selfish and more interested in advancing in their careers - what a crime for a woman to commit!
To be completely honest, my stumbling across this book was not random or coincidental. I, rather, feel as though failure has become central to my way of thinking since the world was thrown into lockdown, and I wanted to use this book as a means of confronting these negative thoughts. The exams that I have been working towards for two years have been cancelled. Although this decision was completely beyond my control, I can't help but hear the word 'failure' pounding in my head, as I will soon receive a grade that I don't believe I deserve. Failure. Failure. Failure. On days where I feel motivated enough to wake up at 7:30 in the morning, go for a run, register with a thousand online courses and clean the entire house, I feel like a failure for not having let myself recover from months of school-induced stress. Failure. Failure. Failure. And on the days where I allow myself not to do anything, instead indulging in an entire season of The Office or scrolling through Instagram for hours beyond end, I am once again greeted with a sense of failure for not having done anything productive with my day. Failure. Failure. Failure.
I am sure that this inescapable feeling of failure captures perfectly the national, and perhaps global, mood. Workers are becoming unemployed left, right and centre, businesses are being stripped of their profits, many of which are likely to collapse in an unprecedented economic situation. Despite the efforts of the majority to stay inside and practise social distancing, we are still met with the daily governmental briefing, informing us that hundreds have died. And, as of writing this article, the UK currently has the second highest death toll in the world.
As I think about this topic more, it becomes quite clear to me how much failure has defined my life. I remember being part of the Gifted and Talented group for Art in primary school, but I was soon kicked out and replaced by a new girl, who possessed better artistic skills than myself. I've never considered myself to be a good artist, and to be frank I don't really care, but this was still a defining moment for 10-year-old Katie, perhaps because I don't like being told that I'm not good enough or that there is someone out there who is capable of doing something better than myself (a shameful confession!). My strive towards perfection followed me to secondary school, and before I knew it I was analysing every test result as if it was a matter of life and death. But these are not distant memories from years ago. No, not at all. Only last year, my German teacher emailed me with my AS German exam results, yet all I was able to express was my disappointment in getting 79/90 on one of the papers. Now having re-read the email several months on, I am left feeling embarrassed for having focused on such a minuscule 'failure', when there were most certainly other things to celebrate.
Perhaps I should have realised that, as Day beautifully writes herself, 'it's never a particularly good idea to build your sense of self on the shaky foundations of academic merit.' In this way, I found that Day's book was confrontational but also quite liberating, forcing me to analyse my own experiences of 'failure', which have all, in one way or another, made me a better person. This year in my German lessons, for example, I have tried to accept that losing marks is not an indicator of failure, but rather shows that I am a normal human being and, like every other person on this planet, I am capable of and allowed to make mistakes. After all, 'success and failure... are the same: it is our reaction to them that makes them either negative or positive.'
So, Elizabeth Day has definitely succeeded (no pun intended there) in painting an extremely complex and realistic picture of failure and, in doing so, has normalised a topic that we are very often afraid to talk about. Failure is not one side of a coin. It's part of a kaleidoscopic spectrum, that, of course, opens us up to moments of humiliation and disappointment, but equally ignites a sense of determination within us all - a determination to get up, brush ourselves off and try again. In the words of the author herself: 'What does it mean to fail? I think all it means is that we’re living life to its fullest. We’re experiencing it in several dimensions, rather than simply contenting ourselves with the flatness of a single, consistent emotion.'
A Challenge for the Reader:
In Elizabeth's Day suitably named podcast 'How to Fail with Elizabeth Day', she invites guest speakers to unpick three moments in their lives, which they would categorise as 'failures'. That is what I challenge you all to do: consider three failures that you have experienced in your life, but instead of lamenting on what was lost, consider how these experiences shaped you to become a better person. Because failure really is quite a beautiful thing.