Fail

Twice in the last week I’ve been challenged with the task of failure.  Not like fail this week, but fail soon, say, before I graduate.  And I realized how difficult this would be for me to do.  I don’t say that to sound arrogant or boastful, I say that because I am so comfortably nestled in the blanket of what I can do, that it is doubtful I will unintentionally find myself exposed in the realm of what is beyond my capabilities, that being, failure.  This has caused me to take a step back and really examine why I choose to do what I do, and more importantly, what I avoid doing.

When the first person told me to fail* I got so excited about it.  I thought YES!  I need to fail!  This will be so good for me!  So I tried to make a list of things that I can fail at, and found myself stuck before I even got started.  I couldn’t think of a single thing to do that I could go out and fail.

I have two hypotheses for the reason of my predicament.

1) I am an extremely positive person and I have spent so long convincing myself that I can do anything that I truly believe that now.

2) I am comfortable in my box and am so scared to take a step out that I have blocked all things I could possibly fail at and written them off as impossible and they don’t even enter into my head as ideas anymore.

In regards to the first guess, I would like to believe that this is whole-heartedly true, and while it probably does have some bearing on my position, I do not think that it is entirely accurate.  I do believe I can do just about anything.  I knew I could run a marathon in under four hours before I did it, I knew I could succeed in college before I was even accepted, and I know I will be happy in life**.  Why is this? 

There are definitely things that I cannot do.  But I say that not necessarily because I don’t think that I can do them, but because I don’t want to do them.  Really my decisions come down to what interests me and what doesn’t, and I rarely consider my ability to complete the task.  Or so I say…

Could possibility two be true?  Do I immediately write things off as too difficult or too far-fetched to pursue them even when my interests would be most satisfied?  It is difficult for me to think back to those times and analyze my thoughts and reasoning behind my decisions, and it is something that I will challenge myself to pay more attention to in the future.

I think my problem in finding failure probably lies somewhere in between my two hypotheses.  I have random ideas of taking off and doing something amazing.  Traveling the world working odd jobs, and not being tied down by work or family.  Part of me wants to discard the expected go to school, graduate, get a job mentality and just be free.  And then the realistic side of me kicks in and reminds me why I am where I am.  But is that side really more valuable than the first?  Or is it my subconscious scaring me back to what is comfortable, and preventing me from taking risks with the possibility of failure***. 

I think my biggest mistake in searching for failure was the verb.  I went out searching, trying to find some way to fail.  Who does that!?  No one wakes up in the morning and says “Today I am going to fail!****”  Failure happens while searching for success.  It is when that success is not attained that the label “failure” is placed.  In one twisted view if I were to go out searching for a way to fail and found it, I succeeded.

And on that note, I’m signing off.  To fail, or not to fail, that is the question.

*A professor on a Women’s Panel I went to last week

**Again, not to be arrogant sounding, but I believe if I go into the future expecting to be happy, those expectations are more likely than not to be met.  This could be a reflection of a life lived with relatively few tragedies thus far, and therefore is just an indication of my naivety, however I believe it is something more than that.  I believe that (barring some circumstances) I choose my happiness.  Sure, some days will be better than others, and some events will occur that severely dampen this outlook for periods of time, but overall, life is what you make of it.

***Oh man!  Mind just blown!

****Unless it is the morning of an Orgo test, in which case you might fail, but the exclamation point would either be missing or indicating sheer terror instead of elation.