This is not one of those expositions that offer solutions or ‘miraculous escapes’, but is written with the sole purpose of being able to identify the feeling of failure. It should make you go “Yeah, I know the feeling”.
Life is unceasing in its ability to test us and will do so till we are around in its domain. There will be a day when you feel elated and the next one makes you want to run away, hide, quit – because you feel like a ‘failure’. The truth is – no one is spared and this is perhaps one of the great balancing acts of nature – of life.
I have discovered that it is important to accept failure – in fact stare it in the face and tell it “I am not afraid”. In reality, I am. Very scared, very hope less. But when you are afraid, you are driven to act – to counter that which scares you. I won’t deny that failure has ‘paralyzed’ me several times – enough to contemplate some very cowardly ideas. But then I tell myself that I have not worked so hard to let one instance label me a failure for good. What about my daughter? My husband? I want them to be proud of me – I want to be proud of me! Giving in to failure is certainly not the way to go.
Look closely – failure has ‘lure’ hidden within it – yes it lures you into taking the easy path – of giving up. I was a massively obese person – illness, emotional eating, feeling sorry for myself – everything ‘contributed’ to the generous layers of fat. I accepted defeat, and continued to wallow in self-pity and as a result kept piling on the kilos. Embarrassed by how I looked, I stayed indoors and even refused to go anywhere with my family or do any of the fun stuff with my daughter. It became overwhelming – that was when I stopped and kicked myself hard and worked at getting rid of this ‘failure’.
Failure is an option, a mind-set, which therefore means that we choose it and worse still let is remain with us. I had chosen failure too but soon decided that failure and I were not compatible. I wanted to prove to myself that it was possible to achieve those dreams that I would oft see even as a child. I may still not be close to achieving all of them, but at least I know I am trying – everyday. The example of being obese is just one of the myriad failures that have had me in their vice grip. But again – this is not a story but rather a ‘place’ where you can feel comfortable, be at ease and relax in the knowledge that failure is not ‘picking on you’ and if you look around you will see many familiar faces working through their own ‘failures’.
Ease up – take a deep breath and then kick failure as hard as you can. Everyone can do it and you don’t need a ‘guru’ or specialist or an expert to show you how. It’s there – inside of you!