Failure

Well, the rapture didn't come.  Raise your hand if you're surprised.  Now hit yourself on the top of the head and go see a shrink. 

For those of you feeling a little down-to-earth today--as in, you are still on this earth, but have surrendered your material assets--let me offer you a free-of-charge blog post and a heavy helping of empathy.  It sucks to lose.  We all know it.  In fact, any one of us loses about as much as any other, but when we're not currently losing, boy do we love to feel superior to those who are. 

Why else do you think you got so much press when you made your doomsday promise?  The press corps knew that either you were wrong, in which case they had the opportunity to widely publicize your failure, or that you were right (far right), in which case they would know once and for all who the ultimate winners and losers are--and they would get to publicize that.

Yeah.  It's an awful, awful world. 

Failure sucks.  I know it.  You know it.  We all know it especially well in the last month or so.  Am I right? (Let me hear an amen!)  But what's worse than failure is having someone offer you trite cliches when it happens, as if that were some sort of remedy.

Ready?  Here I go. 

When it rains, it pours.

It's true.  Especially this May.  So God has clearly demonstrated that He gets this one.  Let's mold our lives in his image.  (In other words, if you're going to fail, fail big.  Those of you who were expecting doomsday, you get an A+ here.  I bet that feels good to hear.)

When at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

Failure is rarely if ever permanent.  It can, of course, have serious consequences, but it's only truly final when you give up (or die).

(Or a seven-headed dragon appears from the heavens.)

In other words, there's always December 21, 2012.

Life's a journey, not a destination.

Have you grown from this very public f-up?  Please say "yes."   

When one door closes, another opens.

Now that you're not raptured, you have all kinds of opportunities to continue to build your heaven resume.  Do some good deeds.  Pray some good prayers.  Convert some tribal folk.

Enough's enough.

End of cliches.
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And now to the important part.  How do all of these cliches embolden and empower me?

Well, as I write this sentence, the Neo-futurists, the first "pro" team I tried out for in Chicago, are holding their call-back auditions.  As neat as it would be for me to be able to write in my blog and perform in a call-back audition at the same time, that is unfortunately not the case.  I was not invited to said auditions, and it is therefore more likely that I will be struck by lightning that it is that I will be cast in the ensemble.

This failure is just the latest in a series of unfortunate personal and professional occurrences (When it rains it pours).  I learned a lot from the audition (Life's a journey, not a destination), and I will be back at the next round whenever it happens (Try, try again).

Because I didn't get cast, I now have the opportunity to drive from Boston to my sister's wedding in California.  I have the opportunity to visit friends and see the places I've wanted to see for, well, at least several years.  I have the opportunity to do all of this in a car that runs on vegetable oil.  Someone should really write a book about that kind of adventure.  (When one door closes . . .) 

So here's a final reminder to all of us who have experienced failure this spring.  Plans change, and shit happens.  But never, ever--or almost never-- is failure a stop sign.  In other words, when things go wrong, or even when you go wrong, remember:

It's not the end of the world.

(Zing!)