Successfully Failed

Have you heard the good news ? (Yes, there can be good news these days). The keys to success are individualized. Thank goodness because I have a hard enough time finding the keys to my car…

Like Calgary’s downtown, the road to success is always under construction. There’s blockages, detours, other people cutting you off and various opinions about expanding.

Success is perceived differently by everyone. The definition of success in the dictionary describes success as: ‘wealth, prosperity and/or fame.’

However, like the great Biggie Smalls once said, “mo money, mo problems.” Just look at Britney Spears’ family these days.

(No really, go look at her social media).

For some, getting up in the morning and making it through a day is a success. While others, going to bed is a success. For many men under the age of 30, having a bed frame is a success. 

Moreover some people believe taking a chance that doesn’t turn out as anticipated is a fail, whereas for someone else, taking a chance and failing is a successful first step. 

The definition of success may vary, but today it was clear I had failed… 

In Living the Dream, I failed at using an alarm clock more than once. Today, I failed a quiz more than once. 

Every year our organization has a number of mandatory staff quizzes. These quizzes summarize various policies and procedures to ensure the safety of the staff and clients. Such as: when is the safest time to complete these quizzes. 

This past year the quizzes were finally uploaded online. No more pencil on paper, filling in bubble sheets like a paint by number. Each topic took approximately 10 – 15 minutes to read through and complete the quiz.

I was Kanye West confident until I reached the quiz on ‘incident reporting.’ 

In my lifetime, the only other test I’ve failed was my first year Anthropology final. Upon my grade, I quickly realized the class had no relation to the stylish store. 

I failed the incident reporting quiz not once, not twice but three times. What hurt the most, was being so close and having a 70% score. 

Apparently ‘third time’s a charm’ meant after three fails it was time to charm my educator into helping me pass. She graciously agreed to meet me and began the quiz optimistic until she was stumped by the third question. Since I was a quiz veteran, I informed her of the choices I knew were not correct. 

A couple questions later she paused once again and stated, “none of these multiple choice answers are correct.”

You mean to tell me, it’s the quiz creator’s fault I failed? Blaming your own failures on someone else is such an unfamiliar concept…

Together we did pass the quiz and I am forever grateful for her help (and her realizations). 

I may have failed 3 times, but since success is a mindset, I can now successfully report this incident.