The Shape of the World

Failure and how it factors into all of our lives is something that most people try hard to avoid. I’ve watched my boys each struggle with accepting failure. I’ve had issues with it myself as I imagine most people have. Accepting defeat is no easy task. No matter how many times I’ve tried to explain how critical failing is to growing up and becoming the person you should be; the crash and burn can be painful to watch. The temptation to scoop them up and solve their problem is always there. It is hard to resist.

The video below brought some points home for me in an eloquent if not long winded way. Adam Savage is the co-host of the show Mythbusters. He recalls two critical failures that shaped his life:

The key part of his talk occurs in chapter 10. You won’t totally grasp his thoughts unless you watch the preceding chapters but his key point really resonated with me. To summarize, he speaks how his failures were required for him to be where he is today. He then speaks of children and how they break rules, he compares them to a blind person in an unfamiliar room, when they break rules they are banging up against the boundaries they can’t see. This is why children need rules, to order their universe. Without rules and failure they grow up having no idea of how the world works.

Perhaps the knowledge that my boys current failures are helping to shape them for their distant future will comfort me and help to stop me from charging in and trying to pick up the pieces.