Why We Will Fail in 2021 (And Why That's Hopeful)

Every New Year’s Eve we engage in a family tradition. We’re not unusual in that, I suppose.  

We have a container in our kitchen with a little label that says “Memories that Make Us Smile 2020.” As the year goes on, we write down moments and happenings that bring joy to us throughout the year and drop them in the jar. 

It is an interesting adventure, to be sure. Some of the cards bring smiles, conversations, and even tears. There are a few where we have to scratch our heads and ask, “What does that one mean?” 

This year we had an interesting pattern – many of the cards came from March and April when COVID-19 quarantine began. It was a time when we were grasping for foundational, hope-giving moments. Then a gap through the summer as we dealt with grief from cancelled travel and other family challenges. 

As I’m writing this on January 4, there are two cards in the jar. We begin again. 

What I’m clearer about this year than in the past is this: even if I made a resolution that the cards we read next New Year’s Eve would reflect an entirely different situation (and, consequently, an entirely different me) the likelihood of that resolution coming to fruition is slim. 

Why? 

The reason is simple. I will fail in 2021 at many things. It is inevitable. And it is also hopeful. 

What I notice about the process of growth – personal growth which is relational growth which is, above all spiritual growth – is that it assumes an ascendancy from who we are on December 31st into the stratosphere of a superhuman version of ourselves. 

I use that word “superhuman” on purpose because many if not all of our plans or resolutions are contingent on us shifting our identity at the deepest level and in the most comprehensive way. 

In other words, for us to become more of who we believe God created us to be we have to be something other than what our journey with God has shaped in us up to this point. Something better, to be more specific. 

That isn’t possible. We will become as we invite Spirit into the things that already are, not as we become something wholly other. 

And we will fail at that. And that is hopeful. 

Why is failure hopeful? 

I’ve started trying to see everything in life through a non-dual lens. Most of us work through life with a dual lens on reality – basically saying there is good and there is bad, there is us and there is them. 

In early years, that is extremely helpful. As a child, there are lies and there is truth. We should always tell the truth and never lie. That’s one way in which dual perspective shapes us. 

The dual perspective also forms the basis of our faith in one way or another. There is God and there is the Devil, or Satan. There are two paths, as Jesus says, one narrow and one wide. Choose. 

Dual perspective is the choice of either/or. 

So, when it comes to New Year’s plans the best way to start is to say “I’m going to______” and “I’m not going to _______.” 

But we won’t _______. 

And we will ________. 

At least not completely. Chances are we’ll have partial success and a good deal of faltering.

Either/or becomes both/and. 

Why do I know that? Because likely the resolutions we make for 2021 are improvised, updated versions of the ones we made for 2020. 

So what do we do with the both/and? When we fail and succeed to varying degrees.

Failure is both painful and instructive. It is our teacher. 

Rather than “avoid it at all costs” and “mourn it, head down, for days” the missteps of the coming year become the moments and insights that move us forward. 

Non-dual thinking says that “everything belongs.” It says “everyone is our teacher.” 

Non-dual thinking doesn’t deny the existence of evil any more than it dilutes the presence of good. What non-dual thinking does is says that the line of demarcation between good and evil is not as broad or dark as we once thought. 

Into a culture of good/bad, in/out/, righteous/unrighteous Jesus speaks the beautiful words that “My Father causes rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous…be then perfect as my Father is perfect.” (paraphrase)

Jesus is using non-dual thinking. 

As I stand in the kitchen and look at the 2021 jar, I realize that by the end of this year it will be filled with the things that we call “good” or “joyful.” Rightly so. These moments always bring a laugh or smile when we read through them. They make us. They form us.

But so do the failures. 

The first move of non-dual thinking is to embrace this idea. It is to wrap our trembling arms around the things that we find repulsive about our inner selves. When we find racism within us, jealousy, or hatred we can either lash out at ourselves or others or we can take a different path.

A non-dual path. The way where success and failure hold hands, swaying in the breeze. The way of the Spirit called the way of formation or transformation. 

Poet and philosopher John O’Donahue puts it this way:

“When we notice something (within us that is) immoral, we normally tend to be harsh with ourselves and employ moral surgery to remove it. In doing this, we are only ensuring that it remains trapped within. We merely confirm our negative view of ourselves and ignore our potential for growth. There is a strange paradox in the soul: if you try to remove the awkward quality, it will pursue you. In fact, the only effective way to still its unease is to transfigure it, to let it become something creative and positive that contributes to who you are.”

(from Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom, 116-117)

Transfigure it. Embrace the failure, the fault, the failing, and know that it does not change your identity as one “in whom Christ dwells and delights.” 

Someone who is fearfully and wonderfully made. 

We are not at the mercy of our failures. Therefore they are no longer ghouls or specters reminding us of our total depravity. They are teachers. We sit still before them – unafraid and unhurried, unguarded – and we learn the way forward.  

Then, we turn and go. We leave that failure behind. 

And hopefully, we put a note in the jar to be read later down the road. Later, when we are more like us – and therefore more of what God had in mind – than ever before. 

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash