Another Post About Failure and Contrived Urn Metaphors.

Famous quotes about failure include how failure is the first step towards success, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and he who has not failed has not tried.

They're vague abstracts so divorced from reality that I think I grind my teeth when I hear them.

From a professional failure and someone who has internalized failure, here's the thing; Failure can often be a waste of time. Failure can weaken you. He who has tried can fail repeatedly and may never succeed.

That's just life.

The truth of the matter is that you often don't have unlimited attempts. You have a finite life and you can actually die after 60+ years of throwing yourself at a brick wall in the hopes that it caves. Now, I'm not saying anything you'll do in this life will take 60+ years but the attempt isn't always worth it. Sometimes you have failed.

And I don't mean just mean failed.

I mean irreparably, remarkably, permanently failed.

Imagine you're a kid, and you're tasked with one job; make sure the construction doesn't knock over the urn with grandpa's ashes off the counter. You sit there, diligently watching, but then you get distracted, just for a moment. It's not long, but in that one instance, you took your attention away and then when you look back, the ashes are now on the floor, the urn is broken into a hundred pieces and you cannot separate your grandpa's remains from the dust on the floor.

You have irrevocably fucked up.

You then have to deal with the aftermath of it. The permanent consequences. You chose wrong, and you will never get another chance at that task. You can't bring that urn back, you can't even tell if what you have in your hands is your grandfather's remains and now you're in trouble and you have no made life objectively worse for someone else.

Failure.

There's a sort of beauty in the finality of it, isn't there?

But here's the thing.

You're going to get a new urn to watch. You're going to get a five-year maximum with three attempts per subject to finish a college degree or you get kicked out. You're going to get a relationship where if you get into the wrong argument at the wrong time, you're going to mess it up forever. You have one body and you have to take really good care of it, because if you don't, you shorten your lifespan. You're going to have financial responsibility and if you're careless and mess up, you might not be able to make rent this month and get kicked out and be homeless. If you don't make a project succeed, you might get 30 people laid off.

That's unimaginable pressure to put on a singular being. No wonder we're such anxious fucking messes, entire destinies hinge upon our actions, much less our own. And if you're anything like me, you might drop that fucking urn repeatedly and never learn anything.

That's okay though.

Sometimes the urn has to drop to make room on the shelf for something better. Sure, it sucked and you ruined everyone's day, but now there's room for something better. And then you put something better there and it turns out alright in the end. Or maybe it's something slightly worse. It's not the same, but you don't have to watch it for so long. Maybe it can survive multiple falls. So you drop it once, but you dust it off and you put it back, and look at that! Instead of having this nightmarish responsibility, the stress thereof being something that very well might kill you, you instead have a much more manageable centerpiece that while it may not be as good as the thing you wanted there, might actually be better for you to have.

If you fail at reaching for a goal, or dream, or aspiration, that's okay. But that doesn't mean you'll fail at everything.

One day, you won't drop the urn.

Maybe it will mean a little. Maybe it will mean a lot. Maybe it will make no difference. Maybe it'll make a huge difference. But the important thing is that one failure, one irrevocable failure, doesn't mean the end of everything. Don't mistake permanent and life-changing consequences with dire and unendingly awful consequences.

You have to hold onto the hope that things will get better, because they do. And you have to hld onto the hope that you will do better next time, and if you don't, then the time after that, and if you fail again, the time after that until you succeed or die. And you're statistically more likely to succceed at least once before you die, so don't lose out hope just yet.

People say not to internalise and make failure a part of your identity and I guess I have failed at even that. I can't tell you the path to success and sometimes I don't think anyone really knows. I think some people rolled the dice and the ones who got lucky are really vocal about it, and the people who drew short never tell you their cautionary tales. There aren't any famous failures. You don't want to hear about people who did it wrong, you already know. You want to know about the people who did it right. You want to learn from them and understand how they did it and replicate their success but you might just never do that.

And that's okay.

"I don't know how much value I have in this universe. But I do know that I made a few people happier than they would have been without me. As long as I know that, I'm as rich as I need to be." A line said by Robin Williams in the show Mork and Mindy

You're not as bad as you think you are. I'm not as bad as I think I am. I'm trying. I hope you continue to try. I'm a klutz and I will likely drop more urns. But I usually clean up, and drop more urns and sometimes I put something nice in the place of the thing I lost. I hope you can too. I hope I can continue to. I hope I have a shelf full of nice things, even if I have a floor full of urns.

Hope you're doing okay.

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Trying To Overcome Failure

If I don't try, I don't fail, right? I'm trying, but I'm just scared. It's a big risk. What if I'm incapable of doing it? What if I try and I fail anyway? I feel so goddamn worthless all the time, I don't think I could handle adding more failure to my practically non-existent self-esteem. Failure puts me in an objectively worse position than I am right now, and while success might put me in an objectively better position, trying and failing-

That's all bullshit.

Not the words themselves, the fact that I feel that way. Hi, my name is Matthew, although I mostly go by Matt-Dave though because I have generic Bible name that usually makes me about the fourth Matthew to enter the room on any given day in a crowded place. I am also afraid of failure. So much in fact that it's actively prohibited my chances at actually accomplishing something more times than I am willing to admit. I don't know when it started, I just know this is how I live now. Take no risks, always play it safe, sometimes do my best to avoid anything even remotely stressful.

Let me explain what I mean.

In my years as a student, I've failed to hand in assignments, assignments that could have saved my grades and prevent another failed University module, because I'm a serial self-sabotager. I tell myself that I'm incapable. The stress I have about the stress I'm going to have doing the assignment outweighs the actual stress of the assignment. I know it's a bad idea, but fuck man. I open the specification and that document gives me anxiety. The idea of having to go through the stress and pressure of uni is so overbearing that hell, I remember a week I couldn't will myself out of bed and I spent the day in bed watching How I Met Your Mother, not eating, and crying. I also said some seriously awful stuff about myself.

And I guess I kind of hate myself. I don't know why. I know I have things to be proud of myself for. I shouldn't put myself down so much. I know that I have people who care about me and that I'm worth something. Hell, I wrote a book, I was in a band that released four songs shittily recorded through a guitar hero mic in my bedroom, I did a bootleg post-hardcore cover of Lana Del Rey's Summertime Sadness just to prove to myself I could. I got into Computer Science at University and worked my butt off to get here.

So why do I struggle with feelings of  inadequacy and self-loathing? Where does all the self-doubt come from?

Imposter-syndrome is one of them.




(image source)

There's an anecdote from Neil Gaiman. He talks about how he felt out of place at a gathering of famous artists and scientist and other people of note. He struck up a conversation with Neil Armstrong, who felt the same. Armstrong says that everyone in this room has made something, or done something incredible. Gaiman interjects by reminding him that he was the first man on the moon. And still, Armstrong says he simply went where he was sent.

The human mind is such an overwhelmingly self-doubting machine that you could be the first man to go where no other man has ever set foot, and still think you're not as good as everyone else, that you're faking it and a fraud whilst everyone else is the real deal.

Many of my peers who started with me had overtaken me by far at the end of my second year. Some of them would go on to graduate within the three year minimum, whereas I still have a long way to go. It was hellish and disheartening. Then, money suddenly became scarce. We couldn't pay my fees at the start of third year and I didn't qualify for a loan so, yay. Studying went on hiatus.

Six months later things perked up again. Those six months were mostly me trying to work and make something, and mostly laying in bed, contemplating life and aging and death. It was a very defeatist attitude.

I did something before I started studying though; I tallied up what I did.

I opened a spread sheet, checked how many credits I needed to graduate (It was in the ballpark of 400), and lo and behold; I'd achieved 144 of those credits. I was actually close to halfway. One semester could actually put me halfway to my bachelor's.

That's not to say I didn't rack up a ton of failures along the way; But holy crap. I got so caught up in how bad I was doing in life that I'd forgotten how I was actually doing pretty alright.

There's something called the Dunning-Kruger effect; It basically boils down to people who are incompetent overestimating their ability, whereas people who are competent underestimate their ability.

And while we do often overestimate, we much more often underestimate ourselves.

Depression and Anxiety are also huge contributing factors.

When you have both, you sort of  have these two people always screaming at you; a super defeatist, depreciating one. That person tells you that you can't do it. That person tells you how worthless you are. That person takes every chance they have to break you down. The other person is a high-strung, panicking hypochondriac that is telling you the stress from doing it is going to kill you. Don't even try. And oh my god, how awful is it going to feel when you can't even do the basic parts? Those two people feed off each other, always screaming, never stopping.

Except both those people are you. That's you depreciating yourself. That's you working yourself into a panick. Sometimes you're not even conscious of doing it. You just hear your screaming at yourself in your head, and then you think that it's true.

But it's not. It's not, I promise.

I'm not your doctor, I can't tell you how to overcome your depression or anxiety. I can tell you one of the ways I do is writing these stupid blog posts. I write. I know that when I don't, I bottle it up, and it eats me alive. Sometimes I can't bring myself to do it. But it gets easier. It gets much, much easier. But it takes time. Sometimes it's still very hard, but then you get a little better at dealing with it. It might never go away, but each time you get up, you get a little better at it.

 If you're anything like me, you've experienced a lot of the above. You've gotten in your own way. The term I like to use is self-sabotage. That's what it feels like I'm doing. Sabotaging myself.

Sometimes it's like that song by Lit. It's no surprise to me/I am my own worst enemy/'Cause every now and then I kick the living shit out out of me. I get in my own way. I am stopping me. How do I get around myself? How do I fight myself and win?

Well, get up. When you knock your own ass to the ground, get up. When you trip yourself, get up. When you push yourself into a hole, climb out. When you stop yourself, start. It's really that simple. It's like jumping into a cold pool. You've gotta take a deep breath, count to three, then run. Focus on just going as fast as you can. There's no time for thinking. Then jump. It's going to be cold, and you know it's going to be cold, but you're out their in your costume and the wind from standing out there is going to make you colder than just jumping in already. And when you hit the water, make the biggest fucking splash you can.

Also, take care of yourself. Do the basics, brush your teeth, brush your hair, take a shower, eat three meals, drink a glass of water, tie your shoelaces. Tell yourself it's going to be okay. Because it's going to be okay. Are you hearing me? It's going to be okay. It might feel awful right now, and like the world is on fire. It might feel like everything is collapsing in on you but it is going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.

That's about all I can say on it.

I don't have much to give as a final word, so I'm going to borrow a couple phrases from people who can strings words together a little more eloquently than I can.

Oprah said that you have to think like a queen; A queen is not afraid of failure, failure is a steppingstone to greatness. But for me, Edison set it best;

I have not failed; I have simply found 10 000 ways that do not work.

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