Have you ever failed at something? Failed miserably? The kind of failure that is unexpected and crippling. The one that leaves you feeling that life is unfair, feeling lost and confused.
I’ve failed woefully at many things. To name a few as an adult, university exams, relationships and friendships, a business, blogs, poor investment decisions.
Failure is not new to us but no one is ever ready for it. It takes the best of us unawares, that is why it is so humbling. In short, the Nigerian society does not allow one to consider failure as an option. Such thoughts are easily rebutted with chants of ‘God forbid’, and ‘back to sender’ prayers. Even when we haven’t prepared and considered all possible setbacks for an undertaking, our religiousness allows us to be very optimistic.
Yes, Jesus is a winner man and so are you, we are all on the winning side.
But, here is a thought; we need to make allowances for failure in our various projects and journeys. If we begin to think of failure as a normality, we could be a lot more bolder in our take on life. Just as the failure of an exam does not mean failure of the whole course, failing at one thing in life does not define who you are or your journey.
Failure can be devastating. And whatever it is you feel you have lost, please mourn for it. It’s not too small, it’s not insignificant and forget those that would want to make you feel like your loss is nothing compared to theirs.
All of us are learners in life. We spend years in school, no one teaches us about relationships or money or decision making. You learn it by yourself. It’s like people getting married, nobody is wife material or husband material. It’s after you sign the marriage certificate then you start learning the stuff that wives and husbands are made of. There’s a lot of failings and regrets in that whole journey.
You and I must be humble and willing to learn. Accept that failure is part of the process. Adapt the mind-set of a learner especially for yourself. . It’s like someone learning how to drive, that thing seems scary the first time, but it’s the bravery and willingness to forge on and the humility to take the lessons needed.
Also here is another truth, not many people own their failures publicly and even when they do, they never say how out rightly stupid and naïve they were.
It’s easy to get taught by a teacher and pass exams. However we’re talking about our individual journeys, there’s no class or cheat sheet on that. Nobody has ever been you, nobody has ever lived your life. My mom used to teach French and this was what she told her students, “you are not French and so you’re doing an incredibly bold thing by learning the language, but you need to pronounce the words boldly and make an attempt at speaking, then your mistakes can be corrected”. And that’s the only way you can learn a new language
I hope you are unstoppable in this season of life, be fearless, be shameless. As long as you’re not stealing the funds of a whole generation, not kidnapping nor encroaching on another’s human rights. Go for it, Take that leap, start that project, apply for that vacancy, in short if there’s no vacancy, still go and submit your application. Just do it! Really, what’s the worst that can happen?
When you cease to be afraid of failure, then there’ll be nothing holding you back. My little one just started crawling and goodness me she believes the world is her oyster. Has she fallen? — several times, has she gotten stuck?- several times. Is she stopping? — Nah not anytime soon. With every fall, she gets stronger, wiser, she is flexing her muscles, learning balance and what works for her.
The problem is we’ve set timelines for ourselves or let society set timelines for us on how life’s journey is meant to look like and where we ought to be. This life, it’s yours to live, it’s yours to write so you better take the bulls by the horn and own it. Own your decisions, accept failure as part of the process, every success or failure is meant to be built upon. I think the worst kind of failure is never attempting, so right now, get up and just do it!
