Failing sucks

but it might not be all bad

Let’s talk about failure. Not the glamorous, Instagram-quote kind where you bounce back stronger and land a book deal. Real failure. The kind where you screw up so badly that you want to crawl under your bed and become a dust bunny until the heat death of the universe.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: failure isn’t a sign from the universe. It’s not some cosmic lesson wrapped in suffering. Sometimes you just sucked at what you tried. You weren’t ready, or you weren’t good enough, or you didn’t care as much as you thought you did. That’s it. No metaphysics required.

I’ve failed plenty. Jobs I didn’t get, relationships that cratered, projects that died halfway because I thought “motivation” would magically carry me instead of, you know, actual work. Every time, I went through the same ritual: binge some podcast about resilience, scribble big plans in a notebook, tell myself, “this is just a stepping stone.”