If we remove failure as a category, what we are left with is movement. And movement, in any form, cannot be meaningless....
life lessons
Failure, as we conceive it, does not exist. It is an illusion born from an impatience, with time and a fundamental misunderstanding of process. It is not a fixed reality but a misinterpretation of progress in its least recognisable form. Every moment we label as failure is, in fact, the groundwork of transformation, the silent accumulation of skill, knowledge, and resilience. The distinction between failure and success is not a matter of truth, but of perspective. If we remove failure as a category, what we are left with is movement. And movement, in any form, cannot be meaningless.
The human mind is conditioned to seek resolution. We categorise events as success or failure, progress or setback, win or loss. This binary framework is both convenient and deeply flawed. It assumes that a single moment of disappointment, rejection, or error can define the totality of an experience. It does not account for evolution, for the way time reshapes outcomes, for the way a loss in the present can be the very thing that creates momentum in the future.
A business that collapses is not a failure; it is an apprenticeship in real time. A relationship that ends is not a failure; it is an exercise in emotional complexity. A photograph taken in error - blurred, overexposed, and imperfect - is not wasted effort but an unconscious lesson in light, in movement, in composition.
Failure only exists when we freeze a moment in isolation. But nothing in life exists in isolation. The arc is always longer than we think.
After completing my master’s degree, I started my own event photography agency. I work with disposable film cameras, which means every photograph is a risk. The cameras are not digital, there is no instant review, no ability to adjust in real time. You peer through the tiny, almost imperceptible frame and snap the photo, knowing it’s a gamble, but crucial for the film’s unmatched quality. So, the only option is to trust the moment, take the shot, and accept that the outcome is unknowable.
Before every event, I always feel a moment of hesitation. What if none of the images are usable? What if something senseless happens, like my finger blocks the lens? What if, after an entire evening of shooting, I have nothing to show for it?
But then, last week, the night before one of my events, in a state of anxious rumination and spiralling, I remembered a single truth that reshaped my thinking: taking one picture is always better than taking none at all.
The mere act of doing eliminates the possibility of true failure. Because effort, no matter how flawed, always creates. If I take 100 pictures and 99 are useless, the one that remains has value. That one can be published, framed, posted everywhere. The 99 that were discarded were not failures; they were the scaffolding that allowed the one to exist.
This principle extends beyond photography. It applies to every endeavour - art, business, relationships, knowledge. The only real failure is the refusal to act, the paralysis that comes from fearing imperfection. To do anything at all is to generate momentum, and momentum is irreversible.
I do not believe in the concept of wasted effort - because I understand the point of it all. The point of striving, of reaching for something, of pursuing anything. The point is not success or failure, not an end goal or a final validation. The purpose is simple: the act of becoming.
To engage with the world, to participate in its unfolding, to step forward rather than retreat - this is the only true objective. Every attempt, every risk, every pursuit is a contribution to the architecture of self. It is experience embedded in the fabric of who we are. Even ‘losses’ become foundations. Because in the act of doing, we are not just shaping our path - we are sculpting the very essence of who we become. When we understand this, fear dissolves. We no longer hesitate, no longer second-guess, and no longer question whether we are making the right choices. Because there are no right choices. There are only choices we make and the selves that emerge from them.
Nothing is ever one thing. The business that collapses, the book that never gets published, the relationship that unravels - all of these appear as failures only when we view them through the narrow lens of immediate result. But what if we extend the timeline? What if we see them not as endings, but as initiations into something we have not yet fully grasped?
A collapse in the present may be the necessary destruction that clears the way for a future that could not have existed otherwise. A rejection may be the delay required for something better to arrive. An ending may be an expansion in disguise.
We are not static beings. What appears as failure today may reveal itself as providence tomorrow - but only because the reckoning reshaped you into the person capable of receiving it.
If failure does not exist, then there is no reason to hesitate. The worst-case scenario is movement. The worst-case scenario is learning. The worst-case scenario is experience that refines, sharpens, and propels. Start the business. Write the book. Enter the relationship. Make the move. Take the photograph.
Whatever the outcome, it will not be failure. It will be an act of becoming - an ongoing creation of self, where every choice, every risk, every pursuit adds another layer to the person you are building. And becoming, in any form, is the only success that ever truly mattered.
