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Everyone says they hate to fail. But why do so many seem to be having an affair with the goddess of failure?
Because of all the limiting memes floating around, people actually romanticize failure:
The romantic suicides and rock stars who OD. Marcello, Rodolfo, and Mimi, the struggling Bohemians in the cold Latin Quarter garret, burning pages from Rodolfo’s manuscript to stay warm. (On Christmas Eve no less!) “I’m always a day late and a dollar short.” “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”
So what’s this romance with failure all about?
It’s the lie we love to tell ourselves. We gave it our best, but the odds were simply stacked against us. We were too young, too old, didn’t have enough money, were lacking the right education, came from the wrong side of the tracks.
Failure comes with a built in validation: You can say, “Hey, I’m not one of those losers that never tried. I gave it a valiant attempt, but came up short because (insert excuse absolving you from any responsibility here).”
It’s romantic to tell yourself that you were just one simple human, valiantly fighting against the forces of evil. It’s not quite as romantic to say I tried, it didn’t work out, so I quit.
If you’re composing an opera, writing a screenplay or television show – by all means romanticize failure, because it’s guaranteed to be a hit with the masses. But if you want to be successful, healthy and happy in your own life – you need to reprogram the meaning and emotions you assign failure.
Yes it’s romantic to talk about the days when you were struggling. But it’s only romantic after you’ve succeeded! Before that, it kind of just sucks. Romanticizing failure is really just your self-sabotage behavior acting out.
Some thoughts about failure:
