The Importance Of Failure

Let's be honest. No one likes to fail.

Stereotypically, Japanese have a huge stigma on failure. This constantly shows up in my third-year middle school English courses. 90% of a classroom can know the correct answer to a question, but not a single student will make a sound. Sometimes this is just a symptom of shyness present in any classroom, but sometimes it springs from a fear of failing. Not only would you be sticking your neck out in class by speaking English, but if you gave the wrong answer on top of that? Humiliation.

To tear apart a stereotype, does this sound specific to Japan? My memories of 6th grade Latin bellow a resounding "NO".

The fear of failure is not limited to my Japanese classrooms. Being a resident in a foreign country is fraught with the same kind of fear. Is this shirt OK to wear? Is it OK to not drink the milk with my school lunch? Can I talk about my girlfriend with my supervisor? Am I holding this rice bowl right? I have rice on my hand! Do I eat it off my hand or get a napkin?!?

This fear can literally be paralyzing. I found myself with two grains of rice stuck on my left thumb unsure of whether to eat it off my hand or to throw it away. It took me about 30 seconds to finally walk to a trash can and flick it off. Being ignorant of your resident country's customs can leave you feeling like an oversized 5 year-old - one who should really know better. C'mon.

But get ready. Here's the big news.

WE ARE MEANT TO FAIL!

Failure should NOT be limited to primary school and childhood.

The moment you stop failing is the moment you stop learning. The moment you stop learning is the moment you stop growing, and the moment you stop growing is the moment you stop truly living your life to the fullest.

Sometime in my first month here in Japan, I forgot this important fact.

In my life, I actively seek situations that set me up for failure, and coming to Japan was my biggest step to failure yet. In a foreign country, you cannot help but fail in some way. It is inevitable. As the internet kids say, you are bound for an "Epic Fail" of some sort. It's just a matter of when and where and how embarrassingly you will screw up. But the instinct to avoid failure is one of our strongest ever. Without it, you'd walk off the edge of a cliff without a care in the world and plummet to your death...

...but how can we hope to fly without taking that step off the edge?

My fear of failure kept me from being myself here in Japan. In my effort to seamlessly fit into Japanese culture, I gave up what made me, me. I was physically and socially reserved. I found myself only talking about what I thought other people would care about, instead of what I loved. It was stifling, and I wasn't even aware of it.

I needed some failure.

Please note that I am on a different foot than everyone else in this picture.

Clowns are the personification of failure. They are not limited to failure, but a clown that does not fail is not truly a clown.

When my Board of Education asked me if I would be willing to juggle for the town's "Matsuri", or festival, I jumped on the opportunity. What's more, I went to the primary school where I heard children learn how to unicycle. With the principal's permission, I borrowed their tallest unicycle, donned my red nose, and began practicing in a parking lot near my house.

On the day of the festival, I dressed in converse, leather motorcycle goggles, a suit vest with a necktie and shirt left untucked, and I biked to my town's baseball field for the matsuri.

The clown's name? "Dai Joe Boo". In Japanese, "daijoubu" translates to "alright" or "no problem".

Examples:

A: Do you need help?
B: Daijoubu-yo! (I'm fine!)

or

(person A approaches person B puking in a gutter)
A: Daijoubu?
B: *BLARGH*

Where Nate was paralyzed by a fear of failure, Dai Joe Boo the clown was fearless. Wear mismatched clothes in public? No problem, daijoubu. Perform in front of hundreds of people who expect you to be God's gift to juggling? No problem, daijoubu. Be the only foreigner to do the town's traditional mining dance on stage with the best dancers in town perfectly dressed in expensive Yukata? Oh yeah, and you only got to practice the dance for 3 minutes EVER? Daijoubu! No problem!

Needless to say, I failed. A lot. I dropped juggling balls probably 5 times by accident. My dance was atrocious. But you know what? It felt great! After about a month of being a perfect employee devoid of mistakes of any kind, the matsuri was an oasis of fail.

It was time to embrace myself as me, as I've had to do so many times before, failures and shortcomings included.

Children in Yukata will never fail being cute...

"To err is human..." Alexander Pope, 1700's AD

"errare humanum est" Seneca, 0's AD