Everyone fails. Everyone gets humbled. Everyone loses. Within every unsuccessful attempt in life is a story to tell, a lesson to learn and a reason why it didn’t work out the way we originally anticipated. Looking deep into the mirrors of our own faults reveals an insightful reflection: the difference between what is and what could be and how we can improve next time.
Growing up with two older sisters, I’ve always had close female role models to look up to whenever I needed a guiding voice or a shoulder to lean on when it came down to everyday life decisions. Despite having such a strong support system, like everyone else in the world, I was bound to mess up over and over again. It comes down to the bottom line that the only way to salvage myself from blundering is by experiencing the miscalculations of my actions and then coping with their ramifications.
Collectively, we as humans have been messing up since we can remember, at every stage of life. Whether it was accidentally using markers that bled through the pages of our coloring books or talking back to our parents when we finally developed that teenage attitude, we have consistently made choices that we have later gone on to regret, but also emphasized understanding from.
I’m no exception to mistakes. Falling for lies and being a bad liar became my fortitude. One of the first times I discovered that I believed in a lie was when I was around six years old and my sister told me the drums were invented by some guy named Henry Drumsicle. Young, naive and unaware of the deceptions in the world around me, it was the first that I believed of many. I was often gullible enough to continue believing countless more, and sometimes intuitive enough to refrain from the fibs of others. Not only was I fooled, but also foolish in myself, with several sly attempts to tell lies of my own, many times getting caught up in the webs of falsehood I had spun.
I have profoundly overshared with the people who had all but pure intentions for my well-being, while simultaneously omitting details from my life with the people who would put my prosperity before themselves in any given situation. I have talked the ears off of those who had absolutely zero interest in a single word spewing from my mouth, yet also interrupted those who may have spoken nothing but truth and wisdom for the benefit of all. I have made promises that I had vowed to keep, but ultimately broke, while I have also been severely hurt by the unkept honors pledged to me by those whom I truly felt were worthy of my loyalty.
Although I have still maintained healthy relationships throughout my life and continue to make fairly decent decisions overall, every success has had a complementary failure. But with every failure came realizations and insightful teachings that I was able to grow a fraction more from every single time.
From the lies I’ve believed, I gained the power to become more aware of potential unfaithfulness, turning believing into foreseeing and learning to deal with those who might betray me. From the lies I’ve told, I’ve learned it’s better to be honest for the sake of not only my personal consequences but for both sides in the overall connections of my particular social interactions. By trusting the unloyal, I developed a sense of positive skepticism, and by hurting the kind-hearted, I learned about empathy.
As I grow older and learn from previous mistakes, I still continue to make more. I’ve been wronged by many and wronged even more. My teenage years were some that were filled with leading the wrong guy on or getting led on by who I thought was the right guy. It consisted of hanging out with people who didn’t reflect the kind of person I wanted to be and letting their actions and morals affect some of mine. I allowed myself to become swamped with the stress of trying to maintain a healthy balance of lifestyle choices that only positively impacted me, only to discover it is impossible to be perfect.
You are inevitably going to trust the wrong ‘friend’, mistreat the kindest soul, fall for that guy who already played you twice, learn from the consequences and then somehow make all those same mistakes again. Making mistakes is a foundation of human nature and is the path to unveiling the beauty behind learning from each one. To truly understand how you want to be perceived and how you want to present yourself, you must experience failures and learn from the incredibly wrong ways they’ve made others and yourself feel.
It is the only way we are going to understand true human connection and feel at peace with our minds and who we ultimately desire to be.