Why We Fail...And Cant See It

by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen 

It is not always true that nothing succeeds like success. 

The lust for success may make us work so hard that we beget failure. Businessmen low down on the totem pole of a big corporation may constantly send memos to the boss to attract his attention, with the result that the boss puts them down as a bore or a pest. Golfers who are determined to be successful as long-ball hitters try so hard that they spoil their rhythm and end up as dubs. A teacher who is resolved to be a success uses such big words and amasses such confused and unrelated blobs of knowledge that the pupils cannot understand him. I have found, after thirty years in universities, that the more books a professor brings into class, the less prepared he is.

One of the greatest failures I ever knew as a teacher was one who used a cart to haul into the classroom his undigested but seeming knowledge. A speaker who yearns to be success, cultivates poses, changes his voice and affects humour, so destroys his personality in the end that no auditor believes him to be sincere. Elderly unmarried women who want to be married try so hard to succeed that they alienate men by forward approaches which remove from men all challenge and the joy of pursuit. Anxiety about success leads to failure.

Another reason for failure is being stuck up and inflated about our own importance. Adler has called this an "inferiority complex". A more proper name would be a "superiority complex". Such people in their own estimation are not in caves, but on pinnacles. Inferiority is not a complex with the proud; it is a reflex. The egotist reacts to every situation so as to make himself the leader of the parade. A very pompous bishop was once described by a group of the junior clergy as a "one-man procession".

Because we generally bump up against people who are our superiors because they are more beautiful, better singers, etc., we become saddened; then, in our unconfessed heart of hearts, we know that we are failures. What are two ways to escape this failure completely? The first is to enter into ourselves and find out what we really are. As a business firm calls in an outside certified accountant, so we take stock of ourselves. The reason for doing this is that there are two kinds of truth in the world: outside truth and inside truth.

Outside truth is what we learn in school about things and history, and read about in the daily press -truths that do not affect us any more than passing traffic. Inside truth is something that sweeps inside of us, controls us, makes us see ourselves as in a mirror: inside truth makes us look at ourselves as we do when awakening at night in the dark. Inside truth is honesty; that is why, in certain flashes of our real nature, we feel awkward, ashamed and haunted by our meanness, our brutality and our selfishness. Sometimes other people get inside us and we react, "That person gets on my nerves." It is when we reach the point where we say that of ourselves that we have the true estimate of our worth.

Once conscious of our capital and real worth, we can now go forth to meet new challenges; maybe learn a new language, take up painting or, better still, begin to serve our neighbours. Knowing our limitations in one direction, we are better prepared to develop the talents we have in the right direction.

The second therapeutic for our vaulting pride is reliance and trust in God. There are here two extremes to be avoided: one is to believe that man does everything and God does nothing, which is the Western sin of pride; the other is to believe that God does everything and man does nothing, which is the Oriental sin of fatalism. The golden truth is between the two, as expressed by Paul: "I can do all things in Him Who strengthens me." One then discovers inner peace, which comes from doing the best one can while relying on God's help. If there is success, there is a thanksgiving; if there is no success, then one still accepts the Divine Purpose.

In the Divine Order, what generally seems at first a failure may be a vestibule for a further success. St Paul was told if he went to Jerusalem, he would be bound and imprisoned. Paul went anyway, knowing it was his duty. He was cast into jail and the Word of the Lord came to him. "Take courage, as you have testified about Me in Jerusalem, so you shall bear witness to Me in Rome."

What was a failure was turned into a tremendous success in a new missionary endeavour. Sometimes nothing succeeds like failure.