Failing Forwards

A journey toward accepting mental illness and learning to cope with failure.

The final frontier has never been something I was super interested in. Sure, the concept is cool, and I do not mind passively learning about it, but it wouldn’t be something I would personally go out of my way to study. But, half of my family is absolutely obsessed with space. Because of this, we’ve gone on vacations to see every Saturn IV, have model rockets in our house, and have a bunch of memorabilia with the iconic quote “failure is not an option” on it. I’ll often jokingly complain about finding it boring, but I’ve always gone along with it for the most part.

“Failure is not an option.” — Gene Kranz

Besides being space nerds, my sisters and I are all nerds in general. I spent most of my free time in middle school with my nose in a book, to the point where it actually hurt my grades. While we are all typically overachievers, I often felt like the slacker of the family.

It’s hard to say this without sounding completely self-absorbed, but I am naturally very intelligent. I always had the best test scores but also the most missed homework. However, my parents have always expected the best from my sisters and me, and we all typically deliver. In this sense, the iconic quote did not just refer to space for us…