Growing up we are constantly conditioned to strive for perfection and greatness in everything that we do, not to mention doing it while staying sane. This ranges from sports to school to relationships and just about everything in between; a competitive atmosphere where failure is either not accepted or just simply looked down upon. Whether it be familial pressure, academic pressure or the individual pressure you place upon yourself, this is something we all have experienced at one point or another in the course of our lives.
While in a frenzy of constantly trying to live up to expectations by doing whatever it takes to “get that A” or by pushing ourselves to the breaking point to gain a coveted spot on the varsity sports team, we rarely stop to think about failure being an option.
Albeit, it’s generally not the first option we strive for and probably shouldn’t be. Failure, being the thing we try to avoid most, only enters our thoughts in a “what if” context, “what if I fail?” We then begin to consider all the possible outcomes of our failure.
Generally, these outcomes are somewhere along the lines of “my parents will be disappointed in me,” “I won’t get into college” or “I wont get a job.” So what if you fail? Then you fail. Life will go on, and you will be OK.
However, failure, like many other things, is natural. We are only humans living day-to-day, hour-by-hour and minute-by-minute, trying to make it through this crazy little game we call life. Often, we tend to be all too concerned with the negative consequences of failure that we neglect to think about the positives. Sometimes, things just weren’t meant to be and change isn’t always bad.
Failure can serve as a benchmark, a re-evaluation and a consideration of your current circumstances. Is what you are doing for you or for someone else? Is what you are doing making you happy and healthy?
You don’t always have the choice to make a change, but when you do, take it. Take advantage or your failure and either use it to fuel your success in the future or learn a lesson from it and move on. Being successful doesn’t have to mean living without flaws but rather dealing with your failure in a productive and graceful way.
Through taking risks and failing we learn how not to fail. It takes us out of our comfort zone enough to test our boundaries and sometimes to succeed beyond our wildest dreams because we aren't so afraid to fail anymore. We've grown accustom to the feeling and we have learned to set parameters on even our failures, should they happen.
It wasn’t until I got to college that I realized it was OK not to be OK, and it was OK to mess up. Statements like “nothing else matters but this” and “when it is all said and done, I will be happy,” filled my mouth on a daily basis.
While meeting with my major advisor and blubbering over a poor test score he simply put it to me like this, “you are average and most of the time that is a good thing.” At first I couldn’t believe what I had been told.
Average.
After all my hard work, I was deemed average!
I began to understand that he wasn’t saying this to offend me but rather to let me know that my failure was normal and it didn’t make me any worse or any better, it just made me average.
We can’t all be extra-ordinary; we can only be the best we can be. We can’t compare ourselves to others because what might work for them could be detrimental to us.
So for now, this is the time to mess up and the time to figure out what works and what doesn’t. If something is compromising your happiness, it isn’t worth it.
When you look back at your life, you don’t want to have forgotten to be human and forgotten to live.
Sometimes living might just mean accepting average.
