Failure isn’t shameful – in fact, it’s the perfect reason to have an ice-cream
High school students in the US are tackling the brutal process of college applications with rejection parties, the New York Times reported last week. At one school, students bring along a printout of their college rejections, ceremonially feed them into a shredder, then get an ice-cream; there is a prize for the most rejected. It sounds wonderful: a cathartic, collective “screw you” to a broken system, using fun to salve the pain.
I wonder if owning rejection is easier in the US, where there is at least a partial sense that failure is OK; it’s considered a learning opportunity and a key part of the origin story. The Silicon Valley motto “fail fast, fail often” took hold because failure was seen as indicative of audacity and a willingness to try. Rejection is a particularly stinging subset of failure, but the principle remains: you took the shot; it didn’t pay off; you try again.
The issue with that narrative – and with lots of failosophy – is that it implies a redemptive arc, a high point from which you can point back to the days in the doldrums and say: look at me now. But life is generally a haphazard stagger around, rather than a cinematic journey – and we know that, really. I think this is why the basketball player Giannis Antetokounmpo’s angrily articulate response to a question about whether his season was a failure went viral: “Some days you’re able to be successful, some days you’re not … Simple as that.”
The maturity and emotional honesty of these kids is shaming and inspiring. I have always hidden my rejections like dirty secrets and done everything I can to avoid getting more – meaning, of course, that I never take the shot.
There are few things I could have learned more valuably at school than how to manage rejection sanely; I genuinely think it would have changed my life. Given that Rishi Sunak is interested only in introducing mandatory maths until 18 for pupils in England, perhaps we need to get better at accepting and owning rejection as adults? Unfortunately, the prevalent method of turning someone down in freelance journalism is deafening silence, which doesn’t give me much to shred.
• Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
own experience has been, and so their reactions can be surprising. There is no guidance as to the best way to do it: is it OK to WhatsApp someone? Is it bad if it’s one of the first things you say when you turn up to drop off your child? (This did make one of my friends cry, so maybe it is.) Is it weird to tell the postie? Or less weird than answering the door at midday in your PJs and a woolly hat and not having a reason?
For all of these reasons I can see why people sometimes choose to keep their illness to themselves. And for some, privacy is important, or there may be issues with telling family or colleagues. But in the main, telling people about my cancer has given me strength. It has helped me process and make sense of what has been happening. I would recommend it, but on – and in – your own terms.
Hilary Osborne is the Guardian’s money and consumer editor
fornia, more than 5,700 people are sentenced to death or life without parole.
Some on death row hope that the transfers will bring them one step closer to leaving prison, especially as some state lawmakers push for reforms to undo some of the harshest prison terms. While individuals can be resentenced or have their death sentences overturned, it would require a major overhaul to enable mass resentencing, and repealing the death penalty as a form of punishment canonly be done througha ballot measure.
CDCR and the governor’s office declined interview requests. A spokesperson for the governor pointed to Newsom’s comments in December saying that commutations for people with death sentences were “something that’s long been considered”.
Dana Simas, CDCR spokesperson, said in an email that it was possible some on death row could be transferred to other parts of San Quentin, but that housing placements would be made on a case-by-case basis related to an individual’s “security, medical, psychiatric, and program needs”. She said the transfer program would expand access to rehabilitative programming and job opportunities, which would allow people sentenced to death to pay restitution to victims.
There was no set timeline for the transfers to be completed, Simas said.
“Hopefully the powers that be will deem me worthy of a real second chance,” said Tracy Cain, 60, on death row since 1988. He is among the 40 death-sentenced people who went through the appeals process and had their death sentences affirmed by state and federal courts, meaning if a new governor resumed executions, he’d be at risk. While he would like to see his death sentence revoked, he said, he also fears the most likely alternative: “Life without the possibility of parole is a death sentence under a different name … When does the rehabilitation become as important as the punishment?”
Those already transferred off of death row said it was refreshing to be around people making plans for life after prison: “It gives us a little bit of hope,” said Rogers. “I’m in an environment where people are studying for parole hearings to go home. People are packing up and leaving to go to the streets, and that’s kind of exciting.”
Thomas said he had since had the chance to participate in self-help groups and now was a facilitator of a class where men process their traumas and engage in group therapy: “There’s some sense of normalcy as opposed to being just locked in a cage and regarded as trash and unworthy of anything. In a San Quentin cell by yourself, you keep all this stuff to yourself. But once I was in this circle and going through this class, I learned to open and share.”
Some of the men in the group are driven by their coming parole board hearings. Thomas, however, has had to find his own motivation: “This change I’ve made in my life, this growth, becoming a better person, it’s solely for me. That’s how I approach it. A lot of guys do this to be able to get out. But I don’t have those opportunities as of yet.”
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Doolin’s mother, Donna DoolinLarsen, said the uncertainty of the transfers weighed on them, but that her son tried to shield her from the darkest parts of death row: “Keith handles a lot on his own that I would never know happens. But Keith has always been positive. Anybody who has ever visited him has never seen him down. But that doesn’t mean he’s not down behind closed doors.”
Doolin said the hardest part of his incarceration was that he couldn’t be there for his loved ones when they were struggling – missing funerals and unable to help his 80-year-oldmother through her worsening health problems. “Being physically handcuffed daily – that hurts,” he said. “But being physically helpless to help my family, that hurts the most.”
For now, Doolin’s holding on to hope that his conviction will be overturned, and that when he leaves San Quentin, he’ll be walking free, not heading to another prison.
He fantasizes about having a meal at a dinner table with family, using real silverware and plates, and drinking water with ice cubes. He dreams of living in an area with lots of grass, trees and open terrain. And he looks forward to never again wearing the blue color of prison uniforms.