Failure is not an option.

Of all the things that someone could be afraid of, I’ve never been afraid of much. I have never had any phobias. I’m not afraid of snakes, spiders, thunderstorms, and darkness does not bother me. I don’t get nauseas very easily, and I enjoy the occasional horror movie. But I have learned that I have one great fear in my life. I am afraid of failure.

Growing up, I remember feeling a heavy sense of expectation on all that I did. I was taught to do everything to the best of my ability, and that something wasn’t worth doing if it wasn’t worth doing right. I am grateful for having been raised with this mentality. It’s caused me to become who I am today. But with everything in life, it comes with its demons, so to speak.

My desire to be successful in all that I do effects how I see myself and interact with others. When I place such heavy expectations on my performance, I become frustrated when the outcome is not what I desire it to be, even if it is out of my control. Because I can’t risk defeat, I must ensure that I have control and influence over every detail that might affect the outcome. Unfortunately, this often comes at the cost of monopolizing tasks and manipulating others. But I have learned something about failure.

Failure is realistic. And more than that, failure holds the intrinsic possibility of growth. We learn more from our failures than anything else. If we define success as task achievements, than we are going to be disappointed a lot. Life will happen, beyond our control. But if the growth, learning, and personal development of ourselves and others is what is important to us, than our failure means our success. How sad it is that we live under the expectation of perfection. We are slaves to perfect performance, perfect attendance, perfect bodies, and perfect relationships. Our culture says that in order to be successful, we have to feed into this expectation. But it is the very drive for success that is causing us to fail. We cannot live in this shadow.

May we realize and embrace the growth in our failures.