Everybody struggles, whether it be a super intelligent friend who seemingly does well at any task, a successful acquaintance who started their own business as a teen or a celebrity role model. I’d bet that they’ve struggled at different points in their lives and possibly failed on multiple occasions before getting to where they are now.
First, let’s define failure as an unfavourable result of something, or an intense struggle. Now, I believe that you can do anything that you set our mind to. However, I also believe that you can take all the right steps and still fail. For instance, you might try your hardest to salvage a relationship or to improve your grade in a class and something still goes wrong – you might lose that connection with someone or fail that class.
When you fail, it can feel like the most important and sometimes devastating event in the world. All that effort to succeed for what? Tears? A bad grade? Empty frozen meal containers? I’d say ice cream containers, but I am a strong supporter of warm comfort foods. I personally like the belief that everything happens for a reason because it makes me think of my failures as character development. I want to point out that I don’t think that every bad or upsetting thing that’s happened to me is something I deserved – frankly, I don’t think any average Joe deserves to have bad things happen to them. But if you look at the lessons that you learn from those negative experiences as something that helped you ‘level up’ to a different version of yourself, it can help encourage you to get back on your feet after experiencing something difficult. I like to imagine life lessons as the mega-mushrooms in Mario Kart where you get to move through the track super fast. Without your failures, you wouldn’t get those!
We have to live with ourselves, so we know everything that we go through. We know that we have experienced the highs and lows of high school football (you’re allowed to cringe with me at the Riverdale reference), yet we don’t know what other people are facing behind the scenes. We often turn to idolize other people, or even wish we lived in someone else’s shoes, because it just looks so great. Maybe someone looks happy, is a star student, has a great job or has great friends and family – but maybe they’ve been through more hardship than you could imagine. It’s easy to think that someone else’s life is ideal when you don’t see what goes on behind that ideal image.
As Drake once said, “they scream out my failures, and whisper out my accomplishments.” Yeah, I’m quoting Drake again and what about it?! He was talking about other people focusing on your failures in an attempt to bring you down, but this can also apply to yourself. We often focus so much on our own downfalls that we can be our own worst enemy. In other words, we can sometimes scream out our own failures by focusing only on them.
What I’m trying to say here is that failure is everywhere, but it happens to all of us. This can sound frightening, but it can also be empowering. If the people that you look up to or admire have defined themselves beyond their failures, who’s to say that you can’t? Most importantly, if failure is everywhere and you manage to secure a great opportunity, make a friend or reach a goal, your success can be that much sweeter.