The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald famously lamented that “there are no second acts in American lives,” having persuaded himself that any failure along the way consigns us to be losers for life.
Despite his early success and lifelong genius, Fitzgerald managed to fulfill his own prophesy. As his beautiful wife descended into madness, he became a bitter and violent alcoholic, dying prematurely of a heart attack at the age of 44.
The novelist’s failure might be dismissed as the product of a morbid artistic temperament. But at this moment many professional economists echo his pessimism, teaching that humankind is condemned to inhabit a “zero sum” universe, in which life’s winners succeed only at the expense of the losers.
Don’t believe it. The weight of evidence from the beginning of recorded history demonstrates that the novelist and his disciples of gloom are dead wrong. Failure is not permanent, but predictable and passing.
Fitzgerald’s quote is one of my favorites, if only for the fact that, as the author of the column points out, it is 180 degrees from the truth of experience. In our own time, think of media people like Marv Albert and Don Imus; in business, Donald Trump; in politics, Richard Nixon. Far closer to the truth is one of the favorite sayings of my beloved Bishop, +Peter Beckwith: “Failure is never final, success is never assured.” Or, in the words of General McArthur, “There is no security in this world, only unlimited opportunity.”