I had to say goodbye to my old horse, Henry, this week. But I am not here to talk about that. It feels like I’ve been doing a lot of talking about death lately.

What I want to talk about instead is purpose.

I belong to the school of thought that believes that, ultimately, our only real “purpose” is to be kind to each other and try to spread a little comfort and joy when we can.

But in the wider conversation, “purpose” has come to be a sort of shorthand for the work that we do. We ask ourselves “What is my purpose?” when we are trying to figure out college or not. What should we study? Which job should we take?

If we are lucky, we stumble into something that we enjoy doing, we are good at, and carries society’s badge of approval. The magical trifecta. Take away just one of those elements, though, and you are bound for an existential crisis.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, because this is one of the greatest lessons Henry taught me: that “failure” isn’t lack of worth, it’s just a mismatch.

Henry, “Little Henry” if we are being formal, was a racehorse. A very bad racehorse. Despite his impressive bloodlines (Native Dancer, thank you very much), we are talking 19 starts and never even placed.

If Henry’s story ended there, as it very nearly did, he would have closed out of this world as a failure. Fortunately, he had another chapter or two in him.

Henry was top notch at finding young, scared or injured horses. He calmed them, gave them courage and set them on a better path. He was a professional “manny,” and he was really good at it.

In one of our heart-to-heart conversations, after he came home to his very own barn, I told him how proud I was of him for his companion work. I swear he listened and understood. He carried himself a little more lightly afterward.

If you find that hard to credit (but I bet horse people don’t) I’ll allow you to go ahead and think that I projected my own feelings onto him. After all, I lived it, too.

In the wild mix of jobs I have had over the years, there have been one or two where, well, I was “Henry on the racetrack” bad.

In the moment, as I failed, it did not matter one bit that I had done well in school, or was witty at the potluck – the experience of being genuinely, authentically bad at my job shattered my sense of self worth.

Lucky for me, I did not stay and adopt that version of “me” for the long haul. I moved along and was lucky enough to land where I fit, where who I am and how I think matched the need of the work.

Same person, same skills, different ask.

I think about this when I think about kids whose way of thinking and “making meaning” doesn’t match the test; of young adults in their first job where the job isn’t the right job, but they think it is their fault; about the elderly whose way of being has shifted, but are measured against a standard that hasn’t.

All of these things feel like failures. In reality, they’re just a mismatch.

There is a quote, often attributed to Albert Einstein, that reads, “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid.” Spot on.

So, if you, like Henry (or me), are in a place where the “fail” feels big, consider that perhaps that it is not you who is lacking, it’s just that you are a fish trying to climb a tree. Find yourself a pond instead, and flourish.