When we are
young, we dream of fame, success, great achievements … And often you will
believe that you’ll be the one who
will make it, because you do everything as perfect as possible to ensure success.
But then life happens, as unpredictable as ever,
and events can make our dreams, efforts and goals fall apart. Some people, or
even you yourself, will say that “you missed the boat”, “you didn’t try your
best” or “weren’t the right person for it”.
Doubt
starts to arise. Who am I without my
dreams, without my success? Do I deserve to be happy when I’m a failure? How would
things have turned out if I had given more of me? How can I overcome this enormous,
all-consuming, feeling of defeat?
This negative
spiral of doubt, low self-esteem, shame, loss of identity, and even anger
towards oneself can lead to depression, isolation, an intense fear of failure,
anxiousness and a whole list of other symptoms.
Maybe, at
some point, the pain of failure will pass, and you will once again start to
chase a new dream and put all your effort, time and money in it. But, in a
world where everything is measured in or success, or failure, only too often the
outcome will be considered to be a failure, and you will be back at where you
started, feeling depressed, lost and despaired at your incapacity to do
anything right.
Because we think,
that if what we did turned out to be a failure, we ourselves are a failure. Our society teaches us that we’re never
good enough, rich enough, smart enough, pretty enough. Our society teaches us
to link achievement and success to our personal self worth! We even attach our inner
identity of who we truly are with accomplishments, thus when we meet failure in
life, we feel deprived of self worth and identity, and see our lives as a
series of consecutive failures, in our relationships, in our careers, in our
health…
And then,
the pressure to succeed becomes so enormous, the risk of failure becomes too
great, and we let go of our dreams, for fear of not being able to cope with
failure. The thought “better to let go of
my dreams then to risk failure” appears.
But here
society is wrong. It’s not true that
there exists only success and failure. It isn’t black and white. Failure isn’t unacceptable, contrary to
what society believes, but rather a necessary
path to success. If failure would truly be unacceptable, we wouldn’t even
be alive, because the whole essence of nature consists in endless attempts that
end in failure, and a couple of successes.
Just to get
my point: How would a baby learn to walk, without at least a couple of hundreds
of failed attempts? How would the nature have been able to create life, and subsequently
all living beings, without endless failed attempts at combining and recombining
the building blocks of life? How would technology have advanced and developed without
all the failures it has gone through?
The sad
thing is that, sometimes we are so focused on archiving success as our ultimate
goal, that we forget to enjoy the things we already have, the moment of now,
and the whole journey of life. We forget to accept our limitations, we ignore
to celebrate our efforts however small, and we will punish ourselves for our so-called
failures.
Because, honestly,
it’s fine to try just for the sake of
trying, it’s fine if a goal isn’t
reached or the outcome is unexpected. The most important thing is the effort,
not merely the outcome. Remember all the positive things you will gain from
failing: important life lessons, deeper knowledge and wisdom, knowing how
things should and should not be done, a capacity to love yourself even if
society dictates you should hate yourself for failing. Learn to accept, to let go, practice forgiveness and compassion, and be kind to yourself, in whatever situation. And maybe, learn to not see failure in a negative way, but rather as an opportunity, a stepping stone to new heights
Lastly, if
you find your true calling, your passion, your dream; listen to it, and follow that what makes you feel most alive.
Deep inside you, you know what to do,
but fear of failing is often in the
way, as are the people who advise you to not pursue your dream, in fear of you
getting hurt, or in envy of you being brave enough to follow your dreams. Do
what you’re here for to do, so you will live
with no regrets. Because, one of the deepest regrets people have when they
die is having not done what they wanted most, not having followed their dreams,
and not having lived truly.
Here is a very inspiring video that gave me the idea to write about this today;
And a few quotes that might make you think ;)
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