What is Failure?

I should have been Greta Thunberg.

At least, that’s what part of my brain insists. As if to prove that dystopian YA novels actually have more to them than adults have given them credit for, the young woman has slowly risen to great acclaim and celebration. It’s well-deserved, and other young activists — Autumn Peltier, Mari Copeny, aka “Little Miss Flint,” Xiye Batista, Isra Hirsi, and before them, Severn Suzuki — have been getting a wonderfully encouraging following. From working to get water flowing to Flint and the First Nations people in Canada who have been neglected by our government, to focusing on the disproportionate effects the climate crisis is having and will have on people of colour and the poor across the globe, these youths are making a real difference.

And in the face of that, it’s hard not to feel like a failure.

After all, if a passionate speech and obsessive, driven action is all it takes, why haven’t I, for instance, managed to do the same thing? From the perspective of a Gen Y looking at Gen Z and their beautiful ferocity and drive for life, it’s hard not to feel as though time is passing sooner than ever and that one is, perhaps, being left behind.

But believing this not only undercuts one’s ability to do things in the future, it also goes against simple statistics.

The prodigy fallacy

When I was younger — a teenager, in fact — I read the book Eragon by Christopher Paolini, as well as The Prophecy of the Stones, by…