How Failure Can Consume You. Part 2

This feels like “the morning after”. I poured my heart out in the Part 1 of this series. Now I know that you know stuff about me that I rarely share. Well, that’s the thing about failure, you still have to face the world everyday afterwards. I ended the last post explaining how failure feels very much like falling into a bottomless pit. Experiences differ from person to person and lucky people will still have support from their friends and family and resources to go back and correct their mistakes. I hope that through this series I will be able to speak to someone who doesn’t really have all the support they need from those they know. Support is important, without it you will soon realise that it is not the actual failure itself that gets you down.

Ultimately it’s about how you see yourself

What Really Gets You Down When You Fail?

 Loss of Friends. People do not want to associate with failures. They want to be around people they admire, people who challenge them and people who make them want to be better. Being friends with a person who is failing or has failed sometimes means endless sessions of comforting and counseling, dealing with bouts of depression and anxiety and constantly working towards changing negativity into positivity.
Apart from people not wanting to be around you, there is also the fact that you don’t want to be around people. Pride, shame, jealousy and emotions like that just makes it difficult for you to be with people who seem to be managing everything you are failing to.
 Loss of Family Support. Families feel betrayed if in their minds you had been carrying the torch for the family and giving them something to be proud of and then you turn around and fail. This means they will have to explain away your failure to whoever asks and you have the potential of becoming a burden to them. If they have spent money on you then you have just tossed their money down the drain.
 Loss of Confidence. After I failed I used to look at everyone around me and think they were better than me. Even the guy standing on the street asking for 50 cents seems to be good at what he did. He actually got a few people to give him money. That meant he was excelling in his trade, I had failed in mine. There was also this feeling that maybe everyone could tell just by looking at me. Every time a stranger looked at me I just felt myself shrinking 10 sizes smaller. I stopped participating in conversations because I just felt like whatever I had to say would not be clever enough. Loss of confidence means lack of motivation to try again or start something new.
 Loss of Credibility. That awkward moment when you tell someone where you have been and what you did and they burst out laughing because they think it’s a joke. They look at you and they try to picture you in the environment you are talking about and the “loser” they see could not be the same person who ever did anything remotely connected to the big places you are talking about. When people want to do business, find friends, employ somebody they always look that person’s history or resume. If your history says you have failed in the past they are going to want to know what value you can add to their lives seeing as you failed to add value to your own life.

Never say you can’t.

The things that get you down are related to “loss”. You lose a lot when you fail. Loss doesn’t have to be the conclusion of your story though. Part 3 of this series will deal with how to come back from failure. After losing family, friends, credibility and confidence it makes sense to just want to crawl into the darkest hole and wait for your death. I actually crawled in but I realised that it was more excruciating living in the dark. They usually say life is short but it can be painfully long if you live in hiding. You’ll be shocked to find out that all the people you were hiding from also had their experiences with failure at one point or another. Best solution, keep your chin up and read part 3 of this series 😉

So, I talked about keeping your chin up. It’s easier said than done. When it’s too hard to just keep your chin up you can talk to someone who has been there. Fill in the form below and chat with me. I’d love to hear from you. Don’t worry, you won’t be asked to buy anything. I really just love to chat to those who are where I have been.

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How Failure Can Consume You: PART 1

I feel that this topic is very broad so I am going to do a series on it. For the next couple of blog posts I will be writing about failure, what it means to different people, how it happened to me, how to possibly deal with it and what to be careful about when faced with certain circumstances. Failure may possibly be the leading cause of many suicides. It is at that moment when a person realises that they have failed too dismally to turn their lives around that they just decide to end it. I shall therefore start with my story of how I was consumed by failure. When I talk about being consumed I need you all to know that I know what I am talking about. So here goes…

 

If you look up synonyms for the word “consume” some of the words that will come up include; devour, swallow or gobble up. These words are just right for what I’m about to say. When you eat, you swallow food and it becomes a part of you. It is broken up and some of it goes into your bloodstream. Your body gets rid of whatever it does not need but when that food comes out it looks or smells nothing like the food that was swallowed. So, what does all this have to do with failure, you may be wondering. Well, we are discussing how failure can devour you, how it can swallow you and take the best parts of you and then simply excretes whatever is left of you. The you that comes out of it will look nothing like the you that was swallowed up.

I remember the moment that I was devoured. I had been flirting with failure for a couple of months, the way a silly person would dance in front of lion and somehow think they won’t be eaten. I was in third year of law school and had failed a number of courses the previous semester. This meant that I could only take a certain number of new courses while I repeated the ones I had failed. In our third year of law we had to do what they called moot court. It was sort of like a class presentation but we would have to present assigned cases and the lecturer would sit in as the judge. Moot was a big deal. It was what we waited for from first year because they made it look and feel real, sometimes they even invited real judges. People would buy new suits and invite friends and family to witness them be “real lawyers” for a day. We got to choose which course we wanted to present in and we chose a partner that we wanted to team up with. I had a limited number of courses to choose from since I was only doing a few courses that semester so my options were limited to one course to moot in that a lot of people found difficult and wanted to avoid. That meant no one actually wanted to team up with me because they would have to do their presentation on difficult topics. That, coupled with my having failed some courses the previous semester meant that they doubted my abilities and did not want to risk failing. My best friend at the time teamed up with a girl that I didn’t even know she spoke to. I didn’t blame or begrudge her. Moot was too important for her to take any chances with me. Everyone’s name was on a public notice board and you would go and write your partner’s name next to yours. The space next to my name remained blank for a very long time and it was up there for everyone to see. One day a girl I sometimes said hi to told me that she had no partner so we could team up if I wanted. My heart was no longer in it. I had lost my friend, I had been publicly shamed by not being picked and I had no clue how to approach the assignment we had to present on. While other teams met daily for preparations we only met once. She did not want to moot with me because I would weigh her down but she had been forced by circumstances. I knew that and it made me hate the whole thing even more. I bought a very sleek suit and got my hair nicely done. Finally, the day came.

 

I said I had failed courses before but that did not devour me. Failing courses was normal. They day of the moot court was the day of my devouring. My partner was one of those chin up, chest out, always alert type of chicks who spoke really fast and always seemed to know a lot. I was the exact opposite. I had not invited anyone, she and the other people who would be opposing counsel had invited half of the university. Each speaker was supposed to speak for 15 minutes. I spoke for less than 5 when the “judge” stopped me and asked me a question. I had not expected that. Just balancing my body to stay up had been a mission on its own and I had just enough strength to read through my presentation. I had no strength for questions or interruptions. So I asked to discuss with my partner as we were allowed to do. She couldn’t even speak to me, she seemed like she was about to burst at the seams I think with anger or impatience or something. All I know is that I was upsetting her with what I was doing. She just scribbled something on a piece of paper. I could not read what she had written because my stomach was turning and I was experiencing serious vertigo. All the energy I had I used to suppress throwing up on her so I just sat there until they called my name to speak again. I could not get up. I just rested my head on the desk and my partner jumped up and did the rest of the presentation on her own. That was it. That was the moment I was devoured. I sank. I literally felt that the earth opening up and there was a bottomless pit in which I was sinking and I was no longer in that room. I can’t tell you how the rest of the session went because I don’t know. I just remember seeing my partner’s friends hugging her and congratulating her and showering her with admiration. Every time I passed groups of people they would stop in their loud chattering and just stare. The worst ones were the ones who stared with pity in their eyes. I had become that girl. The one you see in the movies in some bizarrely embarrassing or uncomfortable situation and you just dismiss it because its fiction. But this was real. I was living it. I had failed the presentation, the course, myself, my family, you name it. And all this in front of many people that I would have to see every day after. I can’t tell you how the next couple of months went. They were all a blur, even now my mind has completely blocked it out. I just know that after being devoured the best parts of me were taken and I was excreted in a state of no law degree, no friends, no confidence, no real desire to go on… I was not the same person that went in. I had transformed into a person that even strangers stopped on the street to ask me if I was ok. Judging by the length of this post and the fact that I still have a lot to write about how I feel I am going to just go on and write a book someday.

Like falling into a bottomless pit being devoured by failure can be an endless process. One that your surroundings, people and your memory never forget. The story does not end here. Part 2 of this series is going to speak about the consequences and the depression phase of failing. Don’t miss it…

If you feel like you have come to end of your rope and you just can’t go on anymore. Speak to someone who cares and you will be surprised at how there are so many reasons for you to get up each morning. Fill in the form below and find someone to vent to, to laugh or cry with, for absolutely free.

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