When I was a child I fell off a ski lift. Rhetoric about kids falling off ski lifts claims that the kis are either scarred (literally and metaphorically) for life or they become fearless, because they’ve experienced the worst that can happen and decided it’s not that bad. I am in the former category. Back when I lived in Somerville, I foolishly allowed my roommates to convince me to go skiing with them.
Looking at the bunny slope next to one roommate, who used to be a competitive skier, I earnestly told him I am scared of falling.
“Falling is good!” He told me. “When you fall, you learn!”
Hours later the same roommate came up to me as I was still barely able to make it own the bunny slope.
“Have you been learning?”
“No,” I said.
He (gently) pushed me over and flew off.
I really hate falling, and I hate failing, but I think it’s useful to talk about when we fail at things. We can normalize failure, look to failure for lessons and opportunities, and make others feel less bad about failing. With that in mind, here are my top professional failures from 2025.
Rejections
I submitted papers to Creativity and Cognition and Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction. Both rejected.
Incomplete Projects
Some of these were stretch goals, but some were just total failures
- Finishing a paper on online communities
- Initial coding of workshop transcripts
- Any progress on [secret project]
- Scoping a lit review
Additional Failures
- Daily writing and/or reading goals
- Conference submissions before 5pm on day of deadline
- Getting literally anything done on time
- Submitting to CHI, DIS
- Making a chore wheel for my lab
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