What We Need to Understand about The Essence of Failure
One of the things that baffle me the most is how easily people quit. They have one or two or I don’t know how many obstacles, and they say, “this is not for me.”
That is, what I believe, the most fundamentally wrong thing about humans.
What I’ve understood from my life, and my experiences with doing things and failing at them is that error is something that comes along to the way to success.
I have literally never seen anyone succeed at something before failing.
And the way I look at failure is that inevitable thing that has to happen before you succeed at something.
For example, when you play Super Mario, and you don’t get to rescue the princess on the first try, and it drives you crazy that you fall down, or you get eaten by one of those ugly-looking turtles. Do you stop playing after you fall down the shaft or get eaten the first time?
Do you go like “okay then, I tried, it doesn’t work out. I’m not feeling like playing anymore.”
I seriously, seriously doubt that. I believe that every one of us at least tried 100 times before we got to rescue the princess, more or less, depending on how skillful you are. My brother didn’t need 100 tries to rescue the princess, unlike me, but that’s not the point of the story…
And, I believe, many finished the game and reached the end. And the lucky Italian plumber and the princess lived happily ever after. Hooray.
All jokes aside, though, why do we approach life differently than we do video games?
When you start studying for an exam and you obviously won’t learn everything when you read it the first time, you say to yourself “It’s okay, I’ll learn better tomorrow.” Why is that? It’s because you know that you don’t get to bear the fruits of your effort from the first try. You need to constantly give your best in order to be happy with the results.
And if you’re thinking, “yeah, it’s easy for you to say, you don’t know how hard I have it.” Well, that’s just the wrong attitude.
Life is never peachy for anyone. Period.
Everyone goes through something that they don’t openly talk about. No one has it all worked out. No one.
But what good does quitting do? Are you going to be happier with your excuses and that you can actually have someone or something to blame for your failures? So what if the odds are not in your favor? If you just take one look around you, you’ll realize how many people struggle. You’ll realize that there are those “luckier” than you, but there are also those that are less fortunate.
Instead of being angry at life for dealing you a bad hand, why don’t you just accept the circumstances in your life as they are and just keep moving forward?
And one step at a time, try changing the things that you don’t like about your surroundings.
The thing about success is not IF, but WHEN you’re going to succeed if you just keep on working. And I can’t stress enough how vital that “keep on working” part is. Whatever you do, don’t stop working on you.
Keep on putting those hours even after everything’s gone badly for you. Even after you have zero support and you feel like life has turned its back on you.
You have only yourself, and that is good enough.
Many people think that it’s too late to start, or that they don’t know anything about a particular field of interest, and they’re not experts, so they don’t have a shot at succeeding.
But many of the best and most inspiring success stories started with the underdog. I mean, who doesn’t like the story about Rocky?
The guy was a 30-year-old washout who kept failing time after time in his life, and yet, he went 15 rounds with the world champion in boxing. But it didn’t happen overnight.
Doesn’t really matter if the actual story is true or not. The reason why so many people like it is because many of us relate to it. Many of us relate to reaching adulthood and not having everything work out the way we wanted it to. And that’s okay.
I’m 27 years old and, no, life hasn’t exactly turned out the way I expected it, but I would rather work my ass off every single day rather than accept whatever life is trying to serve me. Why? Because I know that I can. And so can you, and everyone else for that matter.
Knowing that you can change something about your life is all you need in order to start.
I relate to one very simple philosophy, actually — You don’t like where you are right now? Move, you’re not a tree.
Many people speak about their life as if they were incapable of changing it. And I strongly disagree.
You don’t need to have everything working out for you at the moment. But why does that have to keep you from dreaming more? Dreaming about doing more and being someone who you can be proud of. Not your parents or your friends, but you.
Your story doesn’t have to be great for everyone to hear. But you will know deep within yourself that you are happy because you didn’t give up.
And the next time you think it’s too late for you, think about where you can be five or ten years from now if you just start today? Five years from now, you will be thankful that you started today.
Don’t dismiss time, because it’s the only thing we’re never getting back. Ever. And rather than thinking about how cruel of a place the world is, think about all the opportunities waiting for you if you just start today. But you have to start today, you have to start now.
Embrace failure, because only through failing, you can become what you always knew you could be. Do it for you.
