I have failed at many things in my short life so far. I have accomplished a lot and I am proud of what I have accomplished, but I have also failed miserably at many things. Let's start from the beginning.
I'm sure I failed at some things before college, but I don't remember what they were. Anything that happens before a person turns 18 is mostly meaningless anyways. Unless it's something that causes your life to end or you to go to prison, it really doesn't affect anything.
You could actually say that anything that happens at any point in our life is meaningless because in the billions of years the universe has been here and the billions or trillions of years that it will continue to exist, we occupy only the very tiniest sliver of time. Even the most important people in the history of the world aren't remembered by the majority of people alive today so what chance do we have of leaving a lasting legacy? Yes, we remember some famous people from history, but only a few of the major events or things that happened to them. So, there's that.
So what have I failed at? Well, the first thing I failed at was college. I failed at the part of college that most people think holds the most importance. I failed at going to class, completing the work, and graduating. I would say that I succeeded at having fun, meeting people, and learning about myself, but society doesn't care too much about those things. It only cares that you jumped through the educational hoops, checked the boxes, and received the degree. Society also cares that you pay back the mountains of debt that most people build while they are in college because society cares about that credit score.
I have failed at relationships also. I nearly lost my marriage and my family because of some stupid decisions that I made. There are no excuses for being stupid, but the main reason was that I was unhappy with myself and where I was in life. It was probably the lowest point of my life. It WAS the lowest point of my life. I'm glad it happened now because it allowed me to finally forgive myself for my past failures and start to build myself up from that point on, but damn, was it hard.
I have failed at friendships throughout my life. I was never good at being a friend because I didn't have my own life in order. It's hard to be there for other people and think about them when you're just trying to keep everything working in your own life. You've got to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. I took advantage of some friends and other people in my life and if you are reading this I apologize. I can't make it up to you, but you know who you are and if you ever need anything, give me a call. I will help you out if you can.
I have failed at many of the goals I have set out to accomplish. I wanted to play college sports, make lots of money, be popular with everyone, compete in a bodybuilding contest, and many other things.
I have failed at almost everything I have ever tried. I know I'm not alone because everyone fails at most everything they try to do. If that wasn't true, there wouldn't be so many unhappy people out there. There wouldn't be so many Facebook posts every day saying "Can't wait for the weekend", "It's Monday already? Where did the weekend go?", or "I hate my job." The world is full of negativity and unhappy people and that's because most people have failed at everything.
I know you are probably thinking that this seems like a really negative post so far. You can look at it that way if you want, but it's not. It's really a very positive post. Why? Because everything I have that is good, every success that I have achieved, and every other thing about my life that I enjoy is a result of all of these failures. In a way, every one of these failures is also a success because they led to happiness.
Failing at college has led to being creative in finding jobs, learning perseverance, learning what NOT to do in college, and has led to my success so far in my second attempt at college.
Failing at relationships and nearly ruining my marriage has led to having a better marriage than I ever thought I could have. Things have never been better and I owe it to Kristen for having faith in me and not giving up. This was also the failure that really changed something inside of me and led me to start working on myself. Before this I was always trying to change others so I could be happy. While going through marriage troubles I realized that there is no way that a person can ever change another person. We can only change ourselves and hope that other people see those changes and are inspired to make a change. In the book "Man's Search For Meaning" by Viktor Frankl, I remember reading a part that went something like this.
When presented with a situation that we don't like, we have two options. Change the situation or change our attitude towards the situation.Viktor was in a Nazi concentration camp at the time he wrote this. He was seeing people being killed all over the place, had lost his whole family, and had no real reason for optimism yet he was able to see things clearly and keep that positive attitude. If he could do that in probably the worst situation a person could ever be in, then we can sure as hell do it in our everyday life here in America, where even the poorest people have it better than the majority of people in the world.
Failing at friendships has led me to be what I consider a pretty good friend. I don't have a lot of close friends, but the friends that I do have I would be there for anything they need. I have only learned how to be a good friend by learning from my mistakes in the past.
Why I am writing this now? I don't really know. Maybe it's to get it all off of my chest. It might be in the hopes of some of the people I've hurt in the past reading it and seeing that I am sorry. Maybe so other people that are in the middle of something they perceive as a big failure will have some hope that things will get better. Like I said, I don't know. When I write I just sit down and start writing what comes to me and this is what came to me today.
After really thinking through all of this, were those failures really failures? I think the only way that something is a failure is if we make a mistake and fail to learn from it. I guess that makes all of these failures a succes. Funny how that works, huh?
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