I
asked a few of my friends to tell me about a time that they failed. I
asked them if they felt like it was worth it to try something, even
though it didn't work out.
I am really lucky to have friends who
will tell me things like this. Their responses were honest and raw and revealing. All day today, I've received texts and emails
describing how each of them came up short in his or her life. I know people who have lived through death, divorce, drugs, poverty,
abusive relationships, and sex addiction. They have let down their
children, their parents, their siblings, and their friends. And on top
of that, they were willing to share their failures with me and have me
type them up and put them on the internet.
I don't think I knew what I was getting into.
There were short text message responses like:
I'll take life for 1000. Still waiting to see if it was worth it. Other,
longer responses came via email. One friend of mine has started
writing six different novels, none of which were ever finished, and he
sent me the stories behind each of them. With every email and text, every tale of humility and disappointment, I felt closer to these people, like having this
information about them somehow made them more human and fragile while also making them more badass and admirable.
"I
failed at being the manager at (my job). No matter how hard I tried or
didn't try, once I was promoted, my team was consistently unhappy and
so was I. I was so wrapped up in...family stuff that I didn't have
compassion for me, and even though I knew I shouldn't be the manager, I
never did anything to release the stress."
"Last year I
tried to pass the Motorcycle Rider basic course to get my license and
failed 2 times, then the third time I crashed and dislocated my knee and
sprained my whole leg. Embarrassing and sad as I come from a 'long
line' of riders and enthusiasts and both my 17 year old nieces and my 22
year old nephew were successful in passing and have went on to buy
their own bikes and ride happy."
"One that comes to mind is school, mainly high school, I failed it because of the time I was in my life. Moving to 3 different high schools in 3 different states when your dad tries to send you to a mental house and when your mom kicks you out at 15 when all she was doing was beating and abusing made it hard. I had to focus on being happy and self worth, while struggling to pass my classes."
Sometimes we failed at things no matter how hard we tried, no matter how badly we wanted them. Sometimes we failed people.
The
inspiration to write this blog came to me the other day, when I was
running some errands with a friend of mine and her six-year-old son.
While we shopped and ate lunch, I watched the two of them together and
made a note to try and be more like that with my daughter- more patient
and considerate of her age and how she thinks. I unloaded all of my anxieties and some future plans onto my friend, and I was relieved when she responded with excitement and
support. Her opinion of me as a fellow mom means a lot, and I felt way
better about my decisions once we had spent the afternoon together. The
very next day, she sent me text messages about how she felt like a
"shitty mom" because she feels like she is constantly making wrong decisions with her son. This same woman that I use as an example of how to be a good mother, she is so worried about failing her child. We do this with our siblings. Our mothers. Our lovers. Failing people is something that a lot of my
friends wanted to tell me about.
"I
feel like I failed (at my marriage) because no matter what I did, said,
showed, it was never enough. It was never enough to prove I was
throwing every piece of myself into the marriage...marriage is a two way
street, both spouses need to put in the effort and I felt like the
only one drowning in both our problems trying to fix them and make it
all work."
We've all felt like this. The
sentiment is still the same. We've failed at things that we wanted soooo
badly- like getting a motorcycle license or a marriage- and that is
terrible. When we're kids, we're told to try our hardest, and it didn't matter if we succeeded, as long as we tried. But we also are told that
failure is not an option and that it's important to finish what you
start. Sometimes our best is not enough. Eventually, we fail the people we love. We can't always give
them what we feel they deserve, and we take them for granted. The
failure cuts extra deep on those days.
"I failed as a big sister when I
was younger. I am 22 months older than her. We should have been tight,
but we just seemed to have two different childhoods, even though we had
the exact same living situation. I can still remember her coming up to
me when she was a freshman, I was a junior. She had gotten her period
and needed help. I showed her where the nurse's office was and went
about my day. I still cry about it and tell her I am sorry. I was just an asshole at that age."
"My marriage. I
thought I was ready to be with her for the rest of my life, but I didn't
realize that I had many more years ahead that would alter and change me
into a person that didn't need her around anymore. I failed her and I
failed our marriage."
We also failed at things that
we didn't even care about, and that is such a strange sort of failure, like a double whammy. Not only did we fail, we didn't even really want it in the first place and we STILL failed.
"I feel like I failed (college) because well...I literally
did fail....but also because I failed to push myself to be better and
actually try. Looking back at it now, I feel like I was afraid to
succeed and do the hard work I knew I was easily able to do but I failed
to put in the effort."
"I moved away from home to another
state when I was 22. I lasted less than a year in Ohio before (I)
moved back in with my parents. Even though I didn't like living in
Ohio, I still feel like I failed because I ended up going back to
Kentucky, even though I'm happier here than there."
These
stories, they all feel important, like I should do more with them than
just put them in a blog. These are the stories that made the people I
love into who they are. These are the hard times that took the hardest blows to their spirits and made them look at themselves in new
ways. Success is a wonderful, beautiful thing, but it rarely makes anyone introspective. Failure is so powerful, it can easily discourage us from
ever trying again, but it can also motivate us to be better next time,
to change and evolve to adapt to what life has given us. My friends,
they are experts on survival, and not only that, they are all way more optimistic than they should be. Nearly everyone said that they would love
to go back in time and warn themselves to make better decisions. But
they ALL say that it was worth it to try something new, to gain the
experience, to have the stories. Despite the broken bones, broken hearts, broken
egos, and broken homes, despite all of us having this underlying dread
that we don't know what we are doing with our lives, despite all of
that... we would take failure over nothing at all.
And that means everything.
