An End Does Not Always Equate to a Failure…

I have noticed, as I navigate adulthood, that we are often quick to label an end as a failure in many situations. There’s not much grace given when you find yourself at an end you didn’t expect, hope for or want. 

You may have been let go from a job. A project that you worked on for a year doesn’t get off the ground. You try to get pregnant with nothing but negative test results. A marriage that ends. A business that closes.

 

Any one of these scenarios, or actually all of them, we may dismiss as a failure. A “failed marriage” or “I failed” as I was let go from a job. One that I am currently navigating is the closing of a business — a business I started that ran for seven years. There’s a temptation for those hearing of this closing to minimize the entire experience and label it another “failed” business. 

 

Some of you may know that I started a business in Hamtramck that makes and sells French macarons. In 2016, I found myself starting a hobby of making delicious meringue treats (I cannot call them a cookie!) out of my house. I had fun creating a social media presence with photos of these very colorful and easy-to-promote rows of macarons. I was making so many that I turned to selling them as I didn’t know what else to do with them! 

 

I ultimately went as far as leasing a storefront and creating what I called “my happy place” modeled after patisseries I visited in Paris. The idea was to open just on Saturdays and have a hobby. Well, things went really well and we were ultimately open five days a week and I started to hire employees. I didn’t mention that all this was happening while I was still a busy attorney! In 2018, my role at MCUL began and I sold le Detroit Macaron to my first employee, Isabelle. This week, after being open for seven years, Isabelle has decided to close the store. 

 

I have remained close with Isabelle over the years. She is a year older than my daughter, and I heard her reasons for wanting to close and they were all valid and made sense. I got a sense that Isabelle felt like closing the store was a failure, which was very upsetting to me. I suspect she was feeling this way because we are conditioned to just focus on the end and label it a failure. We may hear others say it and start to buy in, telling ourselves “it failed.” 

 

Most endings have a long, rich story that unfolds when you peel back the layers. A beginning and a middle with challenges, complexities, joy, success and sometimes prosperity along the way. But, when something ends, we quickly jump to just talking about the end part and often it is diminished to a failure. It must be a failure if it ended, right? No. When you frame it this way, and I know my readers will agree, most experiences are too complex to slap on the label “failure.”

 

As I told Isabelle, and as I have told myself as I have matured and seen the nuance to situations in my life, the end is just the closing of a chapter. A change. A pivot. A turn. If you look at the nuance of le Detroit macaron, it is a business started from nothing by one woman and sold to an 18-year-old employee who managed to run a very successful business for six years! How on earth is its closure a failure?! It is a success story through and through. 

 

Somehow, our driven, competitive society has led us to believe that when something that could still go on reaches its end, it is appropriate to label it as a failure. I reject that. I am grateful that, over the last few years, I have learned to embrace change and endings as just that, a change or an end. Who agreed to a rulebook that says when a marriage ends, it fails? Not me. How about we just call it an ending? Maybe in the world of science and experimentation, a label as success or failure makes sense. But when it comes to complex matters involving human emotion and our lived experiences, let’s leave the label “failure” to the scientists.

 

We all go through seasons where things end, and it can be hard. I chose to not make it even harder by calling an ending a failure. To do so is to quickly diminish the beautiful beginning and the messy and sometimes very rewarding middle. To take on the label “failure” and then sprinkle on top of that the shame we carry as a result, is just not necessary in this already challenging world. 

 

I guess the take-away from my blog this week is that if you are getting ready to approach an end or dealing with one that was not expected, focus on the beginning and the middle and see if that helps. Think of it as an ending and leave it there. Like the saying says, “Be glad it happened and not sad it’s over” or however that goes! 

 

I hope my reflections on a recent end to a several-years-long experience can help you the next time you are faced with an end. Focus on what you learned, how you grew and what you are carrying with you to your next chapter instead. Change and ends are hard enough without attaching a negative word to the entire experience. Change the narrative in your head and to those around you, and be sure to correct anyone that gives it a minimized label.

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