And if we fail...

You are probably aware by now that I’m a writer and a publisher. In fact, everyone in my family is a writer. Just Friday night, DW rushed DD and me to a mailbox service to get our entries for a literary competition delivered before the 6:00 deadline. We barely made it before they locked the doors. And neither of us would have had our novels ready to submit if it hadn’t been for countless hours DW spent editing our material and pushing us to revise and clarify what we had written. Whether we win or not, both DD and I know that we have submitted quality work, perhaps our best ever, to this competition.

It was in the midst of this frantic revision cycle that I was inspired with the topic for today’s talk. In my thriller, the heroes are driven in their quest to find a hidden treasure, pursued by unknown forces bent on preventing them from succeeding. There are explosions, injuries, mad dashes across country, biblio-terrorism (a term I coined for this story), and kidnappings. At some point—and I’m sorry I don’t remember the exact words—DW asked me why they were so anxious to find this treasure. What would happen if they failed?

You’ve probably read a book or have seen a movie at some time that sounds a lot like what I’ve described. The heroes have to overcome all kinds of obstacles to complete their quest, but someplace along the line you realize that if they just stopped running the villains would never find the treasure that only the heroes have the clue to. The secret would be safe from their enemy; or someone else would discover it.

As a by-product of this, we find that thrillers have to have a more cataclysmic risk. If I don’t pursue the killer in spite of being warned off by my superiors, the president will die. A nuclear weapon will be detonated in a major metropolitan area. World War will break out. An asteroid will hit the earth and all life will end.

We start thinking that if the obstacles are there, then the result of failure is world-ending.

In 1995, the movie “Apollo 13” came out. In the movie, Mission Director Gene Kranz issues the order to find a way to bring the astronauts down and says “Failure is not an option.” Although Kranz later used the words as the title of his autobiography, those involved in the actual Apollo 13 crisis have indicated that the words were never actually used at mission control. Still, they have entered our vocabulary and are used to drive people forward whether they are talking about the war on terror, a financial crisis at the bank, or a product ship date at Microsoft. We’ve actually come to believe that failure is not an option.

The truth is that whether we are talking about banks, terrorism, health care, unemployment, education, or a relationship, for many people failure is a very real and even likely option.

So what?

Once we realize that failure is an option, we have to genuinely assess what is at stake or we become subject to the abject panic and despair that rules over hopeless situations. But in most cases, there is much less at stake than the end of the world or even imminent death.

This may sound harsh for Unitarians, but if congress fails to pass a comprehensive healthcare bill, so what? We don’t have one now. There will be people who continue to suffer because they do not have adequate healthcare. We will continue to fight for social and medical justice.

If we fail to win the war in Afghanistan—which is likely—then so what? Will we have to find some other way to deal with the threat of terrorism? Some way to live with the Taliban?

We had a great men’s breakfast yesterday and many of the things we talked about were very near to this morning’s topic. A friend related an experience he had at Hewlett-Packard in which he was told by the founders that they expected people to fail. If you don’t fail, you don’t learn. But by and large our society has abandoned that philosophy. If we fail, we believe the world automatically comes to an end.

I got involved as a member of the Board of Directors of a local youth theatre. Since I’ve got a little extra time at the moment, I agreed to take the part of Lazar Wolf in the theatre’s upcoming production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” In that story, when the little community of Jews faces the unthinkable and are evicted from Anatevka, Lazar and Tevya talk about what they will do. “Where are you going?” Tevya asks. “Chicago. In America,” Lazar answers. “My wife, Fruma-Sarah, may she rest in peace, has a brother there.” “That’s nice,” says Tevya. Lazar responds, “I hate him, but a relative is a relative.”

Well, after putting it off for as long as I could, I joined AARP last year at age 60. I always looked at it as something for old people. I certainly never thought I’d be quoting from its electronic newsletter! Nonetheless, an article titled “Protect Yourself from Layoffs” by Stephen M. Pollan and Mark Levine, caught my attention a couple of weeks ago. Well, it’s a little late, but I wanted to see what I’d done wrong. The last point in the newsletter really stuck with me.

“Professional networking today is nothing more than a way to feel like you’re not the only one who’s scared or desperate,” say the authors, continuing that the people in your rolodex are too busy trying to protect their own jobs to worry about you.

But social capital is valuable in a time-honored and traditional way. The answer the authors offer up to the question “What if we fail?” is in the community that we have developed.

“…rebuild and cultivate your personal network,” say Pollan and Levine. “Reconnect with your extended family and distant friends. Become more active in your church or a service organization or charity. And get involved in your community, whether that means attending PTA meetings or tending a community garden. It’s the social capital you build up in your personal life that will yield the best job opportunities in the future.”

Or in the words of Lazar Wolf, “A relative is a relative.”

I submit to you that it is not only about job opportunities. When I titled this talk, I left an ellipsis at the end, waiting for it to be filled in.

And if we fail… to pass a comprehensive healthcare bill in congress, churches and communities will step in, the way they always have, to support people in need.

And if we fail… to win the war on terror, churches and communities and charitable organizations will reach across world boundaries to build loving relationships with people of other cultures and other faiths.

And if our businesses, our banks, or our government fail… our families, our churches, and our communities will be what we have to fall back on, because they are the people who know and care for us.

But it works the other way, too. As we build our networks and become more involved in our churches, service organizations, charities, and community, we become the backstop for others. If they face failure in their lives, we are the ones they will look to for help, support, and caring. The more involved we are, the stronger our network becomes. We are more secure and our friends and families are more secure. And their friends, and their families, and so on.

There is an old business adage that says, “Be kind to those you meet on your way up and they will be kind to you on your way down.”

Take a moment to look around you. The people you see sitting in the next row, across the aisle, or in the next seat are the ones who will care for you if you fail. Those same people are looking to you as their support and safety net.

And if we fail… to be there for others, who will be there for us?