As a former (and recouperating) failure, I am a fond proponent of failing. Not in the sense that you should aim to fail, but how you respond to it once you do. This Saturday I attended the first Aikido dan-graduation in my life. Dan-graduation is quite different from kyu-graduations. It is more formal, it usually takes place along a seminar, is, of course, more demanding and is judged by three people from the Aikido federation of Finland.

Three out of four applicants for the 2.dan were disqualified. Apparently this was something unheard of. As one of the judges marked, if you don’t get disqualified in a graduation at least once in your life, it’s hard to become a good budokan.

A failure is fruitful way to learn something. I don’t mean to learn a simple proposition, I mean something a bit more fundamental of nature; proper ways to conduct yourself, new ways to think, adjusting your set of values. Failing gives you limits. If you succeed all the time, how would you know what you are doing right or whether is all to up to luck? What if one day you have to change the way you do things for any number of reasons? Now everything that has worked so far just doesn’t, and you have no idea why, you probably don’t even recognize why you are failing all of a sudden. You’re stuck on a single mode of thinking, doing, learning, existing…etc. As Calvin (as impersonating his father) once marked:”Feeling lousy builds character”.

When you’ve failed in a <insert a set of circumstances here>, by all means gripe about it, get pissed, blame it on the judges, vow revenge (in your mind) and then get over it. You can always try again, and nothing, NOTHING, you’ve done so far has been wasted.

So kids, fail early, fail often, blame everybody and everything else, then blame yourself (because you’re the real cause), take heed and learn about it. Then shrug it off and continue your life. Am I making myself clear? Bueller?