A young boy, hood up, alone on the bleachers at night looks out onto the dimly-lit field. With the music paused, his ears absorb silence but his mind rings with cacophony. It is a struggle to find the will to stay another half-hour each night, and as he thinks about making his way home, his vision becomes obscured. Another scene comes to dominate his focus: the game, the game four months ahead, the game that makes every extra minute worth it.
Why is it that sports illicit such powerful responses from individuals? Why is it that we aspire to be like the superheroes and star athletes from our childhood? What do they do that makes them so intangibly influential?
Is it because they always win and we like winners? Or is it because after failing time and time again, the final win is so precious that we can produce an emotional response even to a film actor’s persona? To think that a life without failure deserves praise is naïve, to think that a life without mistakes is the correct model to follow is immature and youthful at best. As students of this august institution, many of you may not experience physical, psychological, emotional or social pain as those less fortunate may but it is not to say you aren’t aware. Comparatively, this community is privileged enough to only focus on the path its members must take to become successful, whatever that is. But before you step forward into a new task, make sure you are not afraid to fail. The harsh reality is that failure is not rewarded, it almost never is. Failure invokes the same response worldwide: ostracism, punishment and skepticism in future accomplishments. But I promise you this, without great failure, there can be no great success.
But in our athletes, we see the process and molding of success. Every person is fighting a battle you don’t know about. Our childhood heroes always make a comeback, good always triumphs over evil and hard work always pays off. If you can choose to believe that these are fictional stories of your past, then you walk away with a smile, some memories and nothing more. But if you somehow take your idols’ struggles and make them part of your own, if you find some similarity between your fight and theirs, if you can see past the cartoon drawings of Batman saving the world and the YouTube clip of Michael Jordan dunking from the 3-point line, then you’ll see something much more valuable about yourself. It extends far beyond any scope of exercise and fitness. If you can identify with the young athlete looking out onto his battlefield, then it’s already not worth it to give up.
Don’t be afraid to fail. If you walk a path with no obstacles, then that path probably leads nowhere. There is no formula that gives you the fame and respect you’ve always wanted while keeping you sheltered and safe all the while. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you will be on your way to accomplishing anything you choose to undertake. Whether it’s a career in teaching what you’re passionate about, a life as a professional athlete, writer, designer, politician or published intellectual, networking can put you in a comfortable spot but your comfort zone will not carry you into fame. The only thing that’s guaranteed to get you where you want to be is hard work,so don’t be upset by the results you don’t get for the work you didn’t do. You may be young or old and asking yourself to confront your most difficult struggle head-on is a tall order. One day this pain will make sense to you. That’s because you can’t be sure of anything in your future except your own abilities, because you shall not lose faith in your own abilities, because you cannot predict the future and instead create it.
Don’t be afraid to fail. You can afford to make mistakes and learn from them; what you can’t afford is to avoid every caveat in anyone suggests and live a life uninspired and without passion. You can take every bit of technical information I write with a grain of salt. You can empty the whole saltshaker but at the end of the day, it’s not the safety of someone else’s word that gets you to where you want to be. To be frank, you probably already know what you have to do to get what you want. But perhaps you still haven’t done these things because you are looking for a shortcut. I tell you there are no shortcuts. There are no shortcuts to get the good things in life.
Don’t be afraid to fail. You do have a dream no matter how long it may last. Find it, chase it, protect it. Competition spurs innovation on every level. A nation in crisis will find ways to avoid economic collapse, a losing team in the Superbowl will make the 90-yard drive up the field, and person having failed all previous benchmarks will one day exceed all expectations.
You can have whatever you are willing to struggle for.
