These are some of my recent failures
1) A short story was rejected from a publishing magazine. (15th rejection in two months)
2) An activity in a lesson I taught didn't go well like I planned.
3) I was turned down for a lucrative student coordinator position at a university.
4) An assignment I turned in for my certification program wasn't up to scratch and I had to redo it...for the third time.
5) I was turned down for a date.
I've enjoyed other failures in my life as well.
6) I've failed to get a book published.
7) I've failed to stay in a long term relationship.
8) I've failed at exercising everyday.
9) I've failed at reading at least one book a month.
10) I've failed to be kind, non-judgmental and considerate in every social interaction with every person.
I am a failure. I have been a failure. I will continue to be a failure. I will lose and I will lose badly. I will have my ego and self-esteem maimed by own shortsightedness and laziness.
I will have dreams crushed under my souls as I try to stumble my way into finding them.
I will never succeed in all things I want to do. Even if I had a thousand years to achieve everything I wanted, I think I would still fall short on certain things.
Failure, is the essence of my life...and the same is true for you.
Even if you've never enjoyed those ten failures I listed, you've failed in your own special ways.
Like me, you've probably been hurt by some failures more than others. Some of these failures have kept you up at night or reduced you to tears...or both.
Like me, you've wasted a lot of time abusing yourself over roads you took and others you didn't take.
Like me, you've probably kicked yourself again when you consciously fail to implement the advice about failure you read in every feel-good article or blogpost. You know the one that usually goes along the lines of...
Yes, dear friends, we are failures; unequivocal failures. Yet I don't want to end with the same platitudes about how 'true failure is giving up' or 'if at first you don't succeed try, try, try again'.
There's nothing wrong of either of those sentiments.
It's just that you and I have heard them far too many times before. I'm not sure at this point hearing those mantras again benefits anyone.
What I don't think we hear or read as often though is this:
Failure is normal and it doesn't have to be our enemy.
There will never be a time when you or I will not have to deal with failure. We will never know a period of our lives where we are not falling short in some way.
We may succeed at some things, we may make many dreams come true after years of enduring doldrums and false starts. Yet with each success will come new challenges and we will fail at some of them.
Failure will always be with us. Yet that is okay because failure in the end is not an enemy unless we make him one. Failure can be our greatest friend.
He's the personal trainer who yells at us during the race but takes the time to point out how we can run better next time.
He's the teacher who checks our work everyday to make sure that we are spelling our sentences correctly.
He's the drill sergeant who breaks you down day after day to your very core so that you can rise again stronger.
You may never be able to love him but I think we can all learn to respect him. So the next time you fail don't hurt yourself or try and attack Mr. Failure for doing his job. Instead reach out with an open palm and give him a firm, professional handshake and a smile. He's been with your first day and he'll be with you to your last and he's the strongest ally you will ever have.
Does Facebook need more misery?
This has been on my mind a lot lately.
As I’ve been trying to deal with my bouts of depression
these past few months, Facebook (and social media in general) has been a
blessing and a curse.
On the one hand, it’s been a great way to share my darkest
feelings and get support from friends. On the other, I’ve also felt as if I’ve
been burdening others by putting negative energy in the newsfeed.
This conflict, I think, exists on some level for a lot of
people.
There’s an unspoken
rule on Facebook that sharing too much negativity is taboo and that posting a
status that reveals or alludes to a darker personal issue is simply attention
seeking.
Personal problems should be kept personal, talked about in
private or among close friends in a closed online setting like messages, email
or Skype.
These attitudes were what kept me in the past from sharing
many of my problems online and they’re understandable.
Sharing too many personal issues online does get grating.
It’s tiring to see that negativity in your newsfeed.
Yet at the same time I think there’s also a danger in
allowing too much positive energy.
What do I mean by that?
Well, social media has a powerful emotional effect on
people.
As much as we like to think that Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr
and Instagram are separate worlds from our ‘real life’ deep down we all know
that what happens online is just as important as what we do in the office, at
home or in the grocery store.
Our selves, for better and worse, are intimately connected
to social media and the line between our day to day lives and what we do in
cyberspace is increasingly blurry.
If you’re a millennial, this is especially true.
The younger you are, the more your feelings, attitudes and
sense of self-worth are going to be informed by your online personas.
Now, you might say: ‘Okay, so doesn’t that mean we should
focus on sharing positive or non-negative items so that we avoid bringing
ourselves and others down?’
Well, in my opinion, no not necessarily.
Much like in ‘real life’ the unspoken rule about not being
open about our miseries causes more problems than not.
For someone who struggles with depression, bipolar,
loneliness, social anxiety or another issue social media is sometimes the only
outlet they have for sharing their misery
Again this is especially true if you’re a teenager who’s practically been
raised from the crib with a device in your hand.
If you’re wrestling with personal monsters the constant
barrage of selfies, personal accomplishments, funny memes and self-aggrandizing
updates makes it that much harder to open up both online and in person.
The fact that most people predominantly share good news
about themselves, creates a false impression that everyone you know is in a
better place than you and that no one else can relate to what you’re going
through.
Essentially, it’s the iceberg effect. With social media, we
almost always see the tip of the person floating above the water not the much
larger, deeper part that’s beneath the surface.
Most of us know this. However, we’re human beings and that
means what we know doesn’t always match up with what we feel.
Even if we know that the doctored Instagram images of Susie
with her smiling baby don’t represent the hours of tantrums, dirty nappies and
sleepless nights that come we parenting all we see is the smiling picture and
that clouds our minds.
The same can be said of Molly’s vacation to Spain, which no doubt was earned
with hours of tedious paperwork and years of being unable to take long
vacations.
Because of this, and because we are so intimately familiar with our own
shortcomings and faults we bottle ourselves up.
So what to do? If anything?
Well, as I said before sharing every single difficulty is not warranted.
Disputes with another person, no. Venting constantly about how awful work is,
yeah probably not.
However, deeper issues I actually think are worth sharing.
Deep personal misery, uncertainty in yourself, the fact that you aren’t as
strong as you are at a moment are just as much a part of life as our happiest
triumphs.
Sharing our miseries and uncertainties openly allows others
to know they are not alone. It allows others to understand that most of us have
similar or identical insecurities.
And when we do achieve something, the fact that we’ve been
able to overcome the darker periods of our lives makes our accomplishments even
grander.
I’m sure there are certain aspects of this issue I have overlooked or haven’t
discussed.
However, ultimately I think adding a bit more serious,
self-reflective and self-questioning updates about ourselves has more benefits
than detriments.
If nothing else, the least we can do is know we aren’t the
only ones who hide our miseries behind a smiling profile picture.
