Getting Back on the Board
If you’re not very good at something, don’t worry, you have plenty of company.
In fact, there’s a museum now dedicated to futility.
The Museum of Failure will open in Helsingborg, Sweden, on June 7 with over 60 products.
Among the flops: the Harley-Davidson fragrance, Bic pens made especially for women, and Coca- Cola Blak, a coffee-inspired drink.
“The purpose of the museum is to show that innovation requires failure,” said Dr. Samuel West, a psychologist. “If you are afraid of failure, then we can’t innovate.”
He said he started the museum “to encourage organizations to be bet- ter at learning from failures — not just ignoring them and pretending they never happened.”
Google Glass? Privacy issues torpedoed it. “The cafes in the San Francisco area said they didn’t want people walking in and filming their customers,” he told The Times.
These fiascos in the business world seem trivial in comparison to the experiences of the new American president, according to Peter Wehner, who worked in the administrations of both Presidents Bush and Ronald Reagan.
A Republican who is in regular contact with the administration of Donald J. Trump confided to Mr. Wehner: “The dysfunction in this White House just knows no bounds.”
The missteps started early and have piled up: the executive order barring refugees from particular countries that was struck down by a judge; the failure of the Republican House to pass the American Health Care Act; and the petty fights with America’s allies.
What strikes Mr. Wehner is how unprepared for the job Mr. Trump appeared to be. When speaking to state governors about his health care plan, he said: “Now, I have to tell you, it’s an unbelievably complex subject. Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.”
Another instance was when Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany explained to Mr. Trump that he could not make a trade deal with Germany but only with the European Union. After talking with President Xi Jinping of China about North Korea, he admitted: “After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it’s not so easy.”
Still, he is aware of how difficult the job is. “I know that every president and every staff member faces a steep learning curve,” Mr. Wehner wrote.
Perhaps Mr. Trump can take up surfing, which also has a steep learning curve. And it won’t matter so much if he fails.
At least it doesn’t matter to Karen Rinaldi, who admits being obsessed with surfing for the past 15 years. Not that it has helped her improve.
“In the sport of (Hawaiian) kings, I’m a jester,” Ms. Rinaldi wrote in The Times. “In surfing parlance, a ‘kook.’ I fall and flail. I get hit on the head by my own board.”
The small waves can be too much for her. The big waves scare her off and send her paddling for shore. The question is, why does she persist?
“Because it’s great to suck at something,” Ms. Rinaldi wrote in The Times. When she does catch a wave, she experiences bliss and something more profound: “Patience and humility, definitely, but also freedom. Freedom to pursue the futile. And the freedom to suck without caring is revelatory.”
This willingness to keep surfing without excelling allows her to live in the moment.
Ms. Rinaldi has some advice for others: “You might think this sounds simple enough, but living in the present is also something most of us suck at.”