Failure hurts like hell.
It pushes you and makes you uncomfortable. It stretches you out and intimidates you so much that you may even choose not to attempt something because you’re afraid to face it. The possibility alone scares the hell out of you. It can make you feel weak, and it’s difficult to embrace. Success on the other hand, is the complete opposite. It makes you feel all the good stuff. It doesn’t hurt at all, and it makes you feel proud. So, how the hell is it possible for failure to be better?
Easy— because it’s not easy, and even more, it’s the reason we succeed. Success makes us feel proud, but overcoming the failures is what we are proud of. Every time you fail, every time you feel disappointed in yourself, every time you fall, you get up stronger than before. Your knees leave a mark on the ground, and as soon as you stand back up, the impressions you made turn to stone— a rock hard, invincible, stepping stone. You are one step closer than you were before. Without failure, there would be no path to success.
Failure is valuable. It gives our lives meaning. It builds our strength and defines who we are. Failure is what we are made of. Believe it or not, failure is what we live for. If we didn’t make mistakes, humans could not exist. We were not meant to be flawless beings, nor do we want to be. There would be nothing to learn from, no starting point, no heartbreak, and no disappointment. And in effect, there would be no understanding, sense of self-respect, no finish line to cross, no healing to conjure, and no redemption. The ride would be straight and smooth, and there would be no destination.
Humans need to be challenged in order to grow. We need to be pushed to our limits over and over again. We need to be shoved. We need to be made uncomfortable in order to understand why. And we need to feel confused and lost, so that we can find our way back. We need to be weak, so that we can gain strength and learn to fight against the odds. We need to know bad so that we can appreciate the good. We need to go through hell, to know what heaven is. We need to know what it’s like to be hurt, so that we can learn to love instead. We need to recognize what is means to be down, so that we can identify it in ourselves, and in others, and respond by lifting our chins and picking others up rather than kicking them down. We need to fall and fail if we want to rise.
We need to mark our failures with every stride forward, not sit back in defeat. We need to take every bump, bruise, cut, and scar with us to our next battle, not use it to feed our self-doubt—feed it to the fire in your heart. We were born to feel desire, and to have a reason to keep going, a reason to keep on pushing. Failure is our reason. Failure is why we are here. Failure is the genius behind success. Success does not just appear. It is earned and fought for.
We don’t compete or overcome challenges just for the title, or a certificate that says, “Congratulations, you did it”. We don’t strive for material things in situations like that; we strive for what it stands for. Success is just the paper. The healed scars, bumps, and bruises are what it stands for; they’re what you see. They’re what you are proud of. Successful cannot merely be successful, they can only be successful failures. There is no other way. Failure is the reason we started, the reason we keep going, and the reason we made it. Failure is the only road to true success, and the best one, at that.
You've got to persevere. Don't let your failures get to your head. No pain no gain, right?
