To the Person Who Feels Like a Failure,

You’ve probably read a few open leaders by now. You’re probably looking up quotations that express depression and loneliness, and the only thing you want to hear right now is someone telling you with absolute certainty that everything will be okay. Most of those open letters are cheesy and try to tell you to reach for the stars and to never give up. Yeah, the people who wrote those cheesy things haven’t fully understood what it feels like to reach the bottom.

It’s superficial to think that you can just flip a switch and make your world a bright place again, that positivity is within reach. What they don’t understand is that positivity means you have to get up and you have to face the world again, but the world is exactly what got you to where you are… or is it? Is life to blame for a spiraling downpour? Please, don’t misunderstand me because there are plenty of times when things will just go awry in our lives, but it is key to remember that most of the time our actions create the reaction and vice versa.

Now I know, I’ve gone back on what I said earlier. Let me clarify: you have indeed fallen, but you have not yet failed. How do I know? I’ve been there. I left my first year of school with a 0.5 GPA, I moved out and lived in a disgusting apartment with filthy people, and I was disconnected from everyone who cared about me. There was a solid point in my life when I felt utterly alone, useless, and helpless. Something changed for me, though. I felt something click within me, that made me realize the changes I had to make in order to rise again and only I could make those changes. So I moved out of that apartment, I went back to school and have received one “C”, two “Bs”, and the rest were “As”. I’m about to be a junior now and I am not going to graduate the semester I was meant to graduate: spring 2017.

Success is not measured by the rate in which we accomplish something, but in the fact that we have accomplished something and so my spring 2019 graduation will be even better. Start small and build up. Let’s start with getting out of bed and then maybe play some songs that have a happier tune. Your life won’t be fixed in one day, in fact there are going to be a lot more problems ahead for you. The difference is, you have the opportunity to look them in the face and say, “Not me! Not again! I will never go back”.

Failure is not the end of a journey, but the beginning of a new one. It is quite important to constantly remember that, as long as you keep your head up and persevere, everything will be okay. Healing takes time and it’s okay to get bogged down every once-and-a-while, but it is not okay to sit there thinking it’ll change anything. If you don’t like how things are going, change it. Are you surrounded by the wrong people? Surround yourself with the right ones. Do you feel alone? I guarantee you that if you go on your Facebook page you’ll find at least one friend who will talk to you. Do you feel as if you failed? The better question here would be: did you stop trying?

You are not a failure, you just need a friend to let you know that it’s okay to sit on that bed and cry your heart out. It’s okay to feel anxious because you are going through a lot. It’s okay to feel defeated at times. What is not okay is to not talk to someone, to not get up at some point, and to give up completely. No one said you must go down a specific path and just because someone else looks like they have all the pieces of life put together, doesn’t mean they haven’t been though some difficult things.

Everyone moves at different paces and at some time everyone is going to have their tipping point: the point in which they get too caught up and so they fall, or the point in which life decides to send them over the edge. We have all had a tipping point and if you’ve met someone who hasn’t, then be aware that they will and they might need someone who’s been through this.

To you, the person who feels like a failure, I say fail with all your heart so long as you learn from your mistakes and continue to progress. Anything is achievable, you just have to go for it. Do the thing you feel is impossible, I bet you can do it. I’m reminded of an excerpt from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,

“‘There is no use trying,’ said Alice; ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’ ‘I dare say you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’”

Just remember that once, even Alice did not believe in impossible things. So now, I guess I have to be cheesy, because maybe the cheesy people were right all along, and tell you that nothing is ever truly impossible if you never give up.

Sincerely,

A Professional Failure And An Even Greater Success