Do you ever look back on your life an the things you failed at?
I am not talking about never mastering roller blading or that guitar you have in your closet.
I am talking about complete failure, tuck your tail between your legs and go home failure. Cry on your mom's shoulder kind of failure.
Most of you know I have been teetering on the edge of marriage failure this year. We are about to make a huge leap together, one that will either sink us or save us.
I guess the truth of life is, that you can't succeed if you don't try. Sometimes when you try you fail. It is just a fact of life. Why do we worry about it so?
Our egos?
Often we can look back on our failures and see where that failure, set us up for success later on. I have those in my life too. However when can still see the flames from your dreams going up in flames, it is hard to see those lessons.
If you have a minute, say a quick prayer for my husband, he is going to be doing that today. I need to be whatever that mix of sorrow and hope for the future a spouse should be today. We are going to be making some big career changes and move. It's scare standing here getting ready to jump and that self doubt about doing the right thing are bound to be chasing us.
I have a challenge for you, that is hopefully a good blog topic if you need one. Would you tell me about your worst failure and what you learned from it?
3 comments:
I applaud anyone making those leaps of faith. I'm too chicken shit to do that right now.
My biggest failure was being afraid of failure. As a result, I never tried. When I was in the Army I never attempted any "boards", sort of a review panel for soldiers looking for recognition and an opportunity to prove themselves. I had the personality and the charm to keep people around me smiling, and I knew how to do my job. But I was afraid of putting myself on the professional line...afraid of discovering that I didn't know as much as I thought I did---and having everyone else know it. That fear of failure kept me from trying to advance in rank...to becoming a sergeant...but when I finally decided to get out it no longer mattered.
I'm still afraid of putting myself on the line. I wish I would have done those boards back then... took the risks and learned from the experience.
Good luck to both of you!
I can remember sitting in my living room, on a couch I did not pick our nor did I buy, and looking around and saying, "Well, how did I get here?" (To quote the Talking Heads...)
I'd met someone online, had a long distance relationship for two years, and then decided to dip my toe in about moving from Tucson to Chicago. Everything came together with such lightening speed that I interpretted that as "meant to be."
However, it was not.
I found out that my new partner was lazy, messy, a binge drinker, and totally depressed and mental. (Not things that are easy to see in weekend trips or online conversations but the red flags were there. I had chosen to not see them in my blinding bliss.)
After about a year, things came to a head and I moved out.
Just after that... I found myself on that couch that she had purchased for me because she felt bad that I uprooted my entire life, sold off a bunch of my stuff, and moved to be with her when really she didn't want that...
The crux of it for her was that she couldn't reconcile herself with her god to be in a lesbian relationship.
Okay. That was her deal. So, what was I doing in it? I believed her when she said she loved me and wanted me there with her. I was willing to believe everything... which is so funny to me because I'd been so cautious previous to that and had already heard so many horror stories.
As I sat in my "what in the hell am I doing here?" moment, I realized that every decision I'd ever made led up to this point.
I HAD TO BE OKAY WITH IT.
But I wasn't. And that's when things began to change for me... slowly... and more finitely.
It was yet another phase of coming into being and simply accepting my fuck-ups as part of my life.
Things turned around after that (how could they not? I felt like I was sitting in the bottom of a distilled barrel. And I don't drink!)
As I look back on it now, I realize that nothing, and not even that decision, time-frame, relationship, thought process, is a failure. Nothing is a failure. It's just what happens. And I learned from it. How can something that I learned from be a failure? It's not what I wanted to get out of it but I did in fact get set into motion by that "failure" and have moved on.
Things like this only stand to reaffirm that I am not in control... and there is a bigger plan... and sometimes it's none of my business how things work out... and I need to relax and learn to trust that everything is going to be okay... just maybe not how I thought it was gonna be.
You know what I mean?
I think... a bigger "failure" would be having a regret that I didn't try, didn't follow-through, didn't really live in the moment.
To me regret=failure and that is something you can never regain or learn from.
Just my 8 cents (inflation) worth.
:)
Fear is a powerful thing. A tremendous motivator. And once you get through it... a great catalyst.
Good luck and all the best.
Oh, honey. I am constantly looking at my failures and trying SO. HARD. not to see them for what they are, but instead try to make the best of them. I do this because there seem to be so many of them. My prayers, wishes, hopes are with you and you make these huge changes. And yet, I want to say this (and then duck, so you don't throw a shoe at me): wherever you go, there you are. Take it for what it's worth. If it's worthless, go ahead and throw it back at me.
I guess I keep learning that failures are ok if I'm meant to learn something. The lesson is in the learning
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