I hate failure
Wouldn't life just be like, sooo much cooler if we succeeded all the time?
It would be nice to think that after so many years of working on myself, and after penning many posts discussing these years of working on myself, that I would have no problem when it comes to failure. Because that’s what growth is, right? It’s the willingness to fail and learn.
But the truth is I still hate failing. Hate it. HHAAAAATE it.
It gives me the cringe, it gives me the ick. It brings me right back to high school, when an academic setback made me paranoid that I wouldn’t get into college, and that Jesus was upset with me (it was a Catholic high school I went to, after all).
I’ve been spiritual for a very long time now, and sometimes I fancy that the issues I had when I was a teenage girl are ancient history. After all, I’ve spent all this time in front of the mirror addressing where I’m weak, addressing where I feel inadequate, reminding myself that I am strong and powerful and worthy. So you’d think after, you know, 16 years plus of doing that, that I’d be fixed. The insecurities would be all used up.
But it only took one bad stand-up set to send me back to that 15 year old mind set of “I failed and it’s the end of the damn world.” I swear, if I could write down the dialogue of my subconscious when I’m processing failure as a 39 year old woman, the dialogue would look something like, “I’m never getting into college and Jesus is upset at me.”
And you’d think - you’d think! - that particular insecurity about going to college would have expired once I got into college. And graduated from college. And graduated with a good GPA. But the insecurity is still there. Because, of course, it never had to do with college. It had to do with me feeling like my value was based on me performing perfectly.
And I’m a very dramatic person when I fail. I hole up, become solemn, stare at the wall, walk around like I lost a patient on the operating table…
Eventually I make peace with that disappointed feeling and I find the value in the failure and I shake it off and I’m aight. And maybe that’s just my process: the being hard on myself, the out-of-proportion shame, and the eventual forgiveness.
But, I don’t know. I think at a deeper level that this “process” is something learned, coming from a “girls should be perfect” mentality that many women are so familiar with. And we’re familiar with it because it’s taught to us at a very young age. I know it’s got a choke hold on my generation, at the very least. There are so many ways in which we as females are expected to succeed, and with all that success we are supposed to have there’s hardly any room for failure.
(On a side note, I’m realizing this relates back to a project I produced called, “Nothing is Perfect”, which looks at the different roles us ladies play in Western society. I focused on how these societal roles put daunting pressure on women to perform and excel at everything. So note to self, this perfection thing is something I’ve been puzzling through for awhile.)
I don’t have a neat little bow to put on all of this because I’m still finding my way through it. And I’d rather go streaking in my apartment complex than watch the video of my stand-up to give myself objective feedback.
But I feel it’s enough to say this: I hope other ladies dealing with perfectionism know they’re not alone, and it’s okay. We will fail, and that’s okay too. And if you are currently mourning a failure, just realize it’s not the worst thing you could ever do. And if you are pushing against that instinct to be hard on yourself and you’re working through the messy shameful emotions that come with it, I applaud you. I really feel by dissecting those uncomfortable feelings we can find a happier way to get through life, and that we are setting a better example for younger generations of women: we’re showing that it’s okay to fail and not feel, like, the worst about it.
Nkay? Nkay. Happy Friday people. If you want to see my last stand-up set, don’t ask me for it because it may never see the light of day.
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If you are dealing with serious issues of feeling down on yourself, and you’re looking to build up your self esteem, here’s a link to my Spiritual Teacher’s website. She’s helped me a lot and maybe she can help you too: https://www.guruenlightment.com/