Losing is hard, but losing is also revealing. If that is true, so is its opposite. Winning is easy, but winning doesn’t always reveal what lies in a person’s heart.
There are a variety of responses to failure, especially public failure. Some choose denial — “I don’t care what you say; I didn’t lose.” Others go into hiding. Still, others double down on winning as soon as they can to get rid of the bitter taste of defeat.
But the ones who most impress me are the rare persons who learn and grow from failure. The best example of this for me is Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter didn’t just lose to Ronald Reagan in 1980; he was annihilated. Reagan received 489 electoral votes, while Carter managed only 49. If ever there was a candidate tempted to slink away and lick his wounds, it was Jimmy Carter.
Instead of taking that route, Carter began a public life that has achieved as much good in the world as anything he accomplished as president. Only a year after leaving the White House, the Carter Center was founded in Atlanta. The Center’s mission is to promote human rights, democracy around the world, and peaceful solutions to international conflicts. When nations want elections monitored for fraud, they call on the Carter Center.
I remember a moment early in Bill Clinton’s first term where Carter made a significant contribution to world peace. Tensions between the US and North Korea were escalating over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Supreme Leader Kim Il Sung, as is true of Kim Jung Il, could not afford to lose face, and neither could Bill Clinton. The situation deteriorated until Clinton agreed to let Jimmy Carter meet with the North Korean leader. Carter did so in 1994, and the tension deescalated quickly, almost magically.
Carter’s secret? Instead of resorting to blinksmanship, seeing which of the two would blink first, Carter approached Kim Il Sung as one grandfather to another. The two discussed the issues from the perspective of what would be best for their grandchildren. I can’t help but think that one of the advantages Carter had over Clinton was that Carter knew that there were worse things in life than a bruised ego.
Carter has taken the same perspective, that of the wise elder, in writing and speaking about the plight of the Palestinian people. His support for Palestinian human rights and property rights and his reasonable suggestions for resolving one of the world’s most intransigent conflicts have so far been ignored by both Israeli and US leaders. Having read Carter’s book on the subject, I am convinced that any mutually-agreed upon settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli issue will include Carter’s suggestions.
Perhaps the area where Carter has best shown that losing doesn’t have the last word is his work with Habitat for Humanity. Most Americans have seen a photo of Carter, in his nineties, measuring and hammering at a home building site. This is not a famous person showing up for a photo op, but a man in a hardhat, working side by side with others to give a deserving family an affordable home.
One can argue that the world has benefited more from Jimmy Carter losing in 1980 than if he’d won a second term. But this outcome wasn’t by accident. Carter had the same choices any of us have with losing.
Instead of hiding from sight in 1980, Carter had the humility and faith to enter into failure and come out a better person on the other side. Jimmy Carter is an incredible example of an unexpected truth — failure can be freeing.
