PERSONAL SPECIAL.....A Moment of Failure: Reimagining Life

A Moment of Failure: Reimagining Life

'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:

In the distress of comparison the troubled person may go at last so far that in view of the difference he forgets that he is a man, so that in despair he conceives himself so different from other men that he even conceives he is different from what is meant by being a man.

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.

By Anisa Virji |