Ever feel like you failed somewhere?

[Mépris]

Naaah, this is not another one of those emo rants you find prepubescent girls making all over the interwebz. (:

You ever get that stinking feeling that either brings you down or that takes you to the point where you find yourself obsessing about some things you did the wrong way? Sure, it is well established that one cannot do much about what's already happened besides taking responsibility for it (and no, this does not mean building a time machine...although that wouldn't be bad at all, admittedly!) and moving on. Bla bla bla, this thread is not really about giving away the good ol' "do not make the same mistakes again" cliché phrase. Or as my mother says in French, "Reculer pour mieux sauter", which would roughly mean something along the lines of: "Taking a few steps back so as to make one huge ******* of a leap".

This thread is about sharing your experiences concerning these particular thoughts and what you have done about them.

 

[Lacy33]

You ever get that stinking feeling that either brings you down or that takes you to the point where you find yourself obsessing about some things you did the wrong way?

Why wouldn't you want to experience this? They call this humility from where I come.

 

[AlephZero]

At seventeen and a bit, you haven't even started making mistakes in life. And before you start arguing that that isn't true, just remember that all old people know what it was like to be young, but no young people know what it's like to be old.

The bad news is, the longer you live, the more things you will do that with hindsight could or should have been different and/or better.

Unfortunatlely, the only way to fix this problem that I know is never to attempt to do anything, and that also has a downside. So just learn to live with it.

 

[Mépris]

Why wouldn't you want to experience this? They call this humility from where I come.

I only ever said it wasn't a very nice feeling. Is all.

At seventeen and a bit, you haven't even started making mistakes in life. And before you start arguing that that isn't true, just remember that all old people know what it was like to be young, but no young people know what it's like to be old.

The bad news is, the longer you live, the more things you will do that with hindsight could or should have been different and/or better.

Unfortunatlely, the only way to fix this problem that I know is never to attempt to do anything, and that also has a downside. So just learn to live with it.

That's an interesting way to look at it, yeah. ;)

Tru dat. The downside to not doing anything, the way I see it, is potentially missing out on good experiences of some kind, among other things.

 

[mugaliens]

This thread is about sharing your experiences concerning these particular thoughts and what you have done about them.

With that in mind, yes, I've failed.

I've been fired from two jobs, once after having been falsely accused of stealing from the register, and another time after my boss mooned his secretary and I encouraged her to report it to corporate. Please note that neither one of these incidents were failures! They were merely setbacks in the "crap happens" scheme of life.

At one point, I almost failed out of college. That was my own doing, playing too hard, instead of doing what I should have been doing, which was studying. When I did put my nose to the grindstone, getting an A wasn't too difficult. When I slacked off, getting an F wasn't too difficult, either.

So, my fault? You bet! In fact, I can trace all failures I've experienced to my own volition. I was gifted with a sound mind and body, and came from a good family, having grown up in good neighborhoods, so I have no recourse for blame in any of those areas. Whenever I've failed, it's always been my own damned fault.

Now - what to do about it? First, figure out what it is you were meant to do in life. Usually, this will include both your interest as well as your talent, but you much also factor in your ability to earn an income. You may love playing basketball, but if you suck at it, it'll never be more than a hobby. Similarly, you may be an awesome builder of card houses, but good luck turning a nickle in that trade.

When you find something you're really good at, that you really enjoy doing, and you work hard at doing it well, success, not failure, is almost always the result.

 

[Mépris]

With that in mind, yes, I've failed.

I've been fired from two jobs, once after having been falsely accused of stealing from the register, and another time after my boss mooned his secretary and I encouraged her to report it to corporate. Please note that neither one of these incidents were failures! They were merely setbacks in the "crap happens" scheme of life.

At one point, I almost failed out of college. That was my own doing, playing too hard, instead of doing what I should have been doing, which was studying. When I did put my nose to the grindstone, getting an A wasn't too difficult. When I slacked off, getting an F wasn't too difficult, either.

So, my fault? You bet! In fact, I can trace all failures I've experienced to my own volition. I was gifted with a sound mind and body, and came from a good family, having grown up in good neighborhoods, so I have no recourse for blame in any of those areas. Whenever I've failed, it's always been my own damned fault.

Now - what to do about it? First, figure out what it is you were meant to do in life. Usually, this will include both your interest as well as your talent, but you much also factor in your ability to earn an income. You may love playing basketball, but if you suck at it, it'll never be more than a hobby. Similarly, you may be an awesome builder of card houses, but good luck turning a nickle in that trade.

When you find something you're really good at, that you really enjoy doing, and you work hard at doing it well, success, not failure, is almost always the result.

Thank you for the advice and sharing a few of your past experiences. ;)

Fifth paragraph describes exactly what I've been doing for the past month or two.

This reminds me of something Jason Statham says in London: "I'd rather regret something I had done, rather than something I had not."

Edit:

In retrospect, 'failure' was probably too harsh a term. My apologies for that.

 

[Jasongreat]

http://differentandbetter.com/2009/07/24/if-you-havent-failed-you-havent-lived/"

 

[Mépris]

Video is made of win. : D

 

[ThomasT]

You ever get that stinking feeling that either brings you down or that takes you to the point where you find yourself obsessing about some things you did the wrong way?

Sure.

This thread is about sharing your experiences concerning these particular thoughts and what you have done about them.

I stopped thinking about those 'failures' or mistakes, or whatever, and, hopefully having learned something, got on with things.

If you have trusted friends, family, loved ones who depend on you, then there's motivation to learn and move on. Even if you're more or less alone, the realization that people make mistakes, and can sometimes, with the best intentions, behave foolishly, and that a clean breath of fresh air and some sunshine is really a wonderful thing, and that we have much to be thankful for, and that no matter how bad things might seem they can always get a lot worse, then you can be motivated to learn and move on.

 

[cobalt124]

You ever get that stinking feeling that either brings you down or that takes you to the point where you find yourself obsessing about some things you did the wrong way?

Everybody has this feeling. It's what you do about it that matters.

Sure, it is well established that one cannot do much about what's already happened besides taking responsibility for it

And not dwelling on it too much

(this thread is not really about giving away the good ol' "do not make the same mistakes again" cliché phrase.

That would be too simple

Seventeen is rather a young age to be dwelling on past mistakes. Wait until you are eighteen. When you're making mistakes then, take responsibility and learn from them. As Homer Simpson said: "Don't keep blaming yourself, Marge. Blame yourself once and move on!".

(This thread is about sharing your experiences concerning these particular thoughts and what you have done about them.

I'd split failure into what I've done (it's swings and roundabouts) and how I feel (until recently I've mostly felt a complete failure). I finally faced all this down last year. I was honest about where I had failed, and I took responsibility. It was painful , but not permanently so. Not doing this is much less painful but is the "do nothing option", which really can't be an option to take. So at the moment I feel better in myself than I have for longer than I can remember (I was younger than ten is my best guess). So, at seventeen you don't have this issue, and you certainly have the nouse not to make it an issue in the future.

It's a feeling. It doesn't bring you down, and it doesn't obsess, people do that.

 

[mugaliens]

If you have trusted friends, family, loved ones who depend on you, then there's motivation to learn and move on. Even if you're more or less alone, the realization that people make mistakes, and can sometimes, with the best intentions, behave foolishly, and that a clean breath of fresh air and some sunshine is really a wonderful thing, and that we have much to be thankful for, and that no matter how bad things might seem they can always get a lot worse, then you can be motivated to learn and move on.

Wow. And I thought I had something to contribute.

Thomas, thanks, and if you're ever here in Colorado Springs, let's have a cup of coffee or breakfast.

 

[Mépris]

I've always heard people talk about this "certain wisdom which comes with age" (generally, wisdom does come with age, but I digress) and I pretty much dismissed it. I think I might be starting to get a feel of this. I can now appreciate certain things that I didn't think would change or that I did/thought wrong (or about those around me or me), like most things, are barely ever constant. And taking some more time to look into it, I see that things are changing quickly right now, which I am guessing, is due to my young age?

On another note, I love how these boards have members of such a wide age-group. One of these forums I should have registered a good while back! (:

 

[Mépris]

Excuse my digging this thread up.

I wanted to say thank you to all of you who posted. Reading all of those honest words is really something else and I appreciate that you shared all of this with me.

Yeah, yeah, maybe that's what forums are supposed to be but yeah, I wanted to say the above few words and that's that. :)

 

[BobG]

I failed at my first real job as a busboy. Except, later on, I realized that it wasn't only me that failed at that job - I was really put into a bit of an unfair situation where my chances of success weren't very good. I only worked part time on the busiest days and I had so much trouble keeping up that there was no opportunity to figure out any kind of method to what I was doing - I only could only try to go faster. Which made the dishwasher happy and the waitresses unhappy since I was in such a hurry I sometimes swept the tips into the dirty dish tray. And there was the occasional odd conversation with the manager about how that old lady had come in every weekend for 47 years and had never stole anything from that restaraunt and, suddenly on the day I happened to be working, she decided to steal the salt and pepper shakers. And me sitting there replying, "Wow! Imagine that." And him suddenly getting mad and telling me to go get all of the salt and pepper shakers back from the dishwasher and put them back on the table!

My next job, I was dishwasher at an ice cream parlor, plus I had to make the occasional hamburger and french fries or whatever grilled sandwich the customers might order, plus take the phone orders. No problem until the first weekend night when the place was insanely busy. It was my first weekend and the first weekend for a new waitress. At one point, the new waitress was crying into my apron, while I stood there thinking, "I don't have time for this. I've run out of places to put the dirty dishes. In fact, a tray of dirty dishes is burning on the grill right now!" I also had problems working the phone, believe it or not. It had two lines. The phone would ring and I'd pipe out, "Hello, Mary Coyle's!" and there would be no one there. I'd punch in the other line and pipe out, "Hello, Mary Coyle's!" and then hear the click of the phone, so I'd hang up. Must have been a wrong number. And this happened over and over all night long. I can't believe how many people dialed the ice cream parlor by mistake! About the time the new waitress was crying in my apron, I'd had enough. When I switched over to the other line and piped out my greeting only to have them hang up, I just had to mutter out, "damn bxxxxxxs". Except, actually, the click I heard wasn't someone hanging up. When you switched lines, there was delay in the switch, so the click was the sound of actually being connected to the person on the other line. So the greeting they got wasn't "Hello, Mary Coyle's!", but "Damn bxxxxxxs!" The good news was that the person on the other line wasn't a customer. The bad news was that it was the manager's mother. He was kind of ticked off about that.

The difference between the two jobs was that I also worked some slower weeknights, as well, so I was able to get my act together by the next weekend, figuring out a system to do all these things a lot quicker. Plus, having a cute blonde waitress cry into your apron and having the shared experience of a traumatic first weekend isn't such a bad thing, either. That turned out to be a nice job that I kept all through high school, even getting promoted all the way up to ice cream maker.

And the manager even forgave me for what I'd called his mother. We even became good friends. We even used to go rock climbing together - which proves he must have forgiven me, since it wouldn't have been very hard for him to just accidentally let the rope slip while he was belaying me if he still held a grudge. Actually, trusting a person with my life after I'd called his mother names probably wasn't the smartest thing in the world for me to do, but it worked out okay.

 

[Newai]

mistakes ≠ failure

 

[lincs-b]

I didn't go to uni at 18 and instead worked then had my two kids. I am now studying again but feel old and left behind. I have also struggled getting the balance between the kids and my courses right. I either feel like a crap student or a crap mum.

 

[Borg]

One of my favorites sayings.

Good judgement comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgement.

Since I'm much older than 17, I have a lot of good judgement.