03/02/2018

Good Morning.

I’ve recently found out about the Swedish Museum of Failure. The exhibits include a women-only biro, and a perfume named after a motorbike. “It’s a shrine to the fact that the majority of all innovations fail” the curator explains. The Museum of Failure also runs events such as a failed gourmet tasting menu at a fancy restaurant, a tasting of failed beers from regional microbreweries, and a world-renowned pianist giving a concert of failed music.

I have my own personal museum of failure. You probably have yours as well. Every room is packed from floor to ceiling with exhibits, both large and small. And the cellar is overflowing with failures and mistakes that I’ve either forgotten about or hidden away. However the difference is that my museum of failure isn’t brightly lit, rarely brings a smile, and I’m definitely not inviting family and friends to the opening night.

Yet failure doesn’t need to be something we’re ashamed of. Many people who are now considered extremely successful spent much of their lives experiencing failures that are now simply water under the bridge. “I have not failed. I’ve just found ten thousand ways that won’t work” said Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb. “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm,” said Winston Churchill.

What Edison, Churchill and others discovered was the ability to treat failure as a badge of honour: as the inevitable side effect of being human, trying our best and learning how to do better next time around. Let’s pray that each of us can learn to celebrate our museums of failure and to be more loving and forgiving of our inevitable mistakes.