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'I'm a failure,' he said to me. I could hear the dejection in his voice, the broken heart...his grasp on life was slipping... I could picture his shoulders drooping, eyes pained...
I was afraid that he
might be contemplating drastic measures
..ending it all. He had been trying to build a life for himself for five years and was unable to get a grip. Nothing changed, nothing moved. No matter what he did he
ended up at ground zero.
His work, his relationship, his finances, his self-confidence...lay in shambles around him as he stared listlessly out the window of his god-awful flat,yearning to jump. Weighed down by that one scarily powerful word: failure. What had the world done to him? How could it be that one person would
be so dejected with life
that he just didn't want his anymore?
What could make a good man, with an elite education, and, in my opinion, unmatched intelligence, reduce everything about himself to the one
unforgiving label,
'failure'?
I couldn't even imagine that life could be so cruel... Mine has been decidedly
gentle. I've sunk to my
own bottom, of course...flailed, cried...pushed back
and risen again. So I
tried to find my own lows again, my own sense of
hopelessness, to
remember what it was that pulled me out of my misery,
and use that to pull my
friend back up to my level of faith in life.
And here's what I remembered: There is no such thing as failure. Failure is relative to expectation. It is just a perception. A story we tell
ourselves.
The truth is, my friend is not, and nor is anyone else, a failure.
We are human. It is
enough for us just to be.
Pressured by life and society and our own egos, we set expectations for
ourselves that life is
just not always ready to match in the way we want them.
If you can situate your expectations in perspective, assess where they are
coming from...you can
change your 'failure' story...and your experience
of life. So where do
your expectations come from...
Society The sad fact is that society judges us quite harshly by its own, often unfair,
standards. If you're a man, you're likely to be judged by your
ability to
build wealth.
If you're a woman, you're probably going to be judged by
your ability to run a home and take care
of family. Even in this
oh-so-enlightened twenty-first century, in most parts
of the world,
a man will be ostracised if he chooses to stay at home and raise a
child,
and a woman will certainly face the same if she chooses to do the
opposite.
If your expectations are raised within these parameters, but your
life or
your own desires don't match up, you could feel like a
failure.
Loved ones You know when people tell you to 'be a man' or 'deal with it', they think
they're being helpful. A
friend once told me that I was 'wasting so much
potential', probably
hoping to push me to do bigger and better things.
But instead I felt
completely down on myself, like I was a waste of life.
They may love us, and they may want the best for us. But sometimes,
our loved ones want
things for us that we don't want for ourselves.
Are they saying 'you are
good enough just as you are'? Or are they pushing
you to 'be the best that
you can be'? The latter can put unfair pressure
and set unrealistic
expectations, and you need to ignore them.
Ourselves We all do this one terrible thing that has the capacity to mar even the most
sublime experience of
life, and that is compare. Of this disease of
comparison, Danish philosopher
Soren Kierkegaard said:
The problem with comparison is that we never really have a complete view
of somebody else's life.
We might see his spectacular job, and have no
inkling of his failed love life. We might
glimpse her lovely children, but be
unaware of her struggles
with her career.
But based on what we see around us, we create expectations of ourselves.
Actually, our ego
creates these expectations. 'I must be better somehow.'
- richer, prettier,
nicer... But really, you are 'good enough as you are'.
We must each find our own life, based in our own journey - our strengths
and weaknesses are ours
alone. Our joys are our moments to cherish and
our sorrows are our
crosses to bear.
Remember you are 'antifragile' The writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb coined the concept of antifragile. Fragile is something that breaks under pressure. Tough is something that
can withstand pressure.
But we are neither of those. We are antifragile,
which means we get
stronger with pressure.
When things get really tough, you sometimes worry you can't handle it.
'I can't take it. I'm
going to snap. It's going to be a nervous breakdown.'
But when you've hit rock bottom, the only way left for you to go is up.
And you will be stronger
for it. Because life is not win or lose.
It's really just a journey... You're trying to get to somewhere.
You end up somewhere
else. Either you correct course and try
again or you accept the
new destination you have stumbled upon.
Until the road ends for you - you keep moving on, right? Why would
you ever consider ending the road yourself?
If you're concerned about my friend, don't be - he will be fine.
He will put one foot in
front of the other until time heals his pain,
and friendship gives him
strength. He will be stronger, happier,
and find his way into a
new life. And I will be there to say to him
'You are perfect just as
you are.' And I hope you can say that to
those who are struggling
around you.
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By
Anisa Virji
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