Do you believe failure is not your enemy? Yet, how I failed at almost everything still baffles me today. *shakes head laughing* Well, read further to find out.
I joined secondary school in September 2004 and earlier the same year, Facebook was launched. It was a rave then unknown to us because we were just kids not knowledgeable about the internet. So the next year in JSS2 we were asked to come into the computer lab for computer science practical studies.
This time we were introduced to Microsoft Word, and at the time I remember my classmate Uchechi coming back to gist us about how she opened a new Facebook account. My God!
She did not stop talking about it. *haha* Suddenly everyone wanted to have a Facebook account. So during free periods when the computer lab was open, we would go in, sit on the desktop and create an account. That was how I created my Facebook account.
While creating the account I remember that there was a session that required me to write a quote or statement. Guess what I put in?
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Even at that age, I recognized I was failing at a lot of things but I was still relaxed about it.
I failed in School
If you asked of one of the most popular girls in school back then, you’d find my name on the list.
If you asked of one of the most fun girls, you’d find my name on the list
If you asked one of the girls with great vibes, you’d find my name there.
If you asked of one of the most brilliant girls, you’d most likely find my name at the bottom of the list. *laughs*
I never had good grades in school. I was good in particular subjects like English, Government and Literature in English. But when you try scoring all subjects together, you’d laugh at my failure.
I think my best position in school was 7th. I never went above 7th in school. (I can’t stop laughing as I type this) And I never hid it. I remember how I and my friend Chidinma Dim used to laugh at my result. She would finish me, I would finish her, we’ll laugh at each other and I’d go back to being the Chika that I was regardless of my failures.
Having the 17th, 19th, 25th, and 27th position almost every time in school out of forty to forty-five students wasn’t something to be proud of. I remember not liking it. But I also remember how trying to assimilate physics or chemistry, mathematics, or French wasn’t working.
There was no magic or reading that was going to make further mathematics enter my head so I always knew I would fail. And I did.
So I retired to enjoy the accolades I got from English & government and embraced the failures of others.
In the university, I wasted my 100 level in the hopes that I’d get my dream course in Law. By the time I realized that wasn’t going to work, I was already in 200 level. So I had two years to make up for everything and at least don’t fail. I studied hard by the normal definition of studying hard and still, I did not graduate with the best result.
I failed in Adulthood
One would have thought that because of my great survival instinct, I would have been conquering the world and making big moves. The only thing that was moving in my life was debit alert, rejection, grief, and unexpectations.
At one point I was swimming in a pool of rejections that resulted in self-doubt and self-embarrassment.
At the other point, I was drowning in grief and darkness. Mourning one death after the other and detaching myself from others because of the fear that no one would be safe around me.
More times than I remember, I sunk in bad decisions. Was it my inability to choose for myself? Or was it my incapability to choose what was right? Or was it my lean towards choosing what everyone thought was right for me? I had no idea at the time but I was sinking in making decisions that turned my life for the worse.
I failed at everything but won big in the end.
How?
Because I accepted that failure is all part of the puzzle. That failure is not your enemy.
So I’m sorry if you were expecting a miraculous success story reading this article.
This is not a success story. This is a failure story.
Failure is not your Enemy
In a family of two, the one who is always getting good grades gets more love than the one who is busy fixing toys and unused cables.
The one who is a hot shot at a law firm is more respected and has a special seat at the dinner table than the one who is selling thrift and the market and doing all the house chores.
The child who fails is ignored but the one who passes is applauded. Failure is not your enemy. It is the society that sees failure as a disease that is the enemy.
No one starts something with the intention of failing. Failure is an unexpected event that just happens in the course of trying something.
But here is the beauty of failure.
“Failure is not always a mistake. It may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.”
She keeps failing because she keeps trying
He keeps failing because he never stops trying
Failure says – I don’t know if I am going to be the best, I don’t know if I am simply just embarrassing myself, but I am going to do it again because I can.
Failure says – Even if yesterday was terrible I am going to try again today because not trying is the worst.
You are delusional if you think you would never fail at something. You are even more delusional if you think that failure is your enemy.
Accepting failure is your first chance to do something different, try something new, make progress toward your goals, and become successful at something.
My failures make me stronger.
My failures make me crazier
My failures make me bolder
Some people fail and then crawl into a corner. Others fail and they become quiet. It shouldn’t be so, darling.
Your failures should be your encouragement, not your demon. Your failures should be your light, not your darkness. Your failures should be your strength, not your weakness. Yet, you allow people to threaten you with your failures, you allow them to manipulate you with your failures, you allow them to blackmail you with your failures, and you allow them to decide who you are because of your failures.
You’ve turned failure into a burning so deep into your skin that you shiver at the mere thought of it when in reality, failure is not your enemy.
Let me tell you a short story, every time I fail, I double my energy. Every time I get a rejection email, I send five more emails shooting my shot. I tell a friend that I lost today, I tell someone that I failed today because it is nothing to be repelled by.
Be unapologetically open to talk about your failure.
Be unashamed about your failures as a person, a daughter, a friend, a lover, a colleague, or a wife.
Fail!
Accept!
Adjust!
Then watch yourself win…even with an incalculable amount of recorded failures.
Read more books on failure here
Do you agree that failure is your enemy? What’s your failure story? Care to share in the comments?
