October 12, 2024
You won’t always win. You’ll lose more than win. You’ll fail more than succeed. You’ll miss more shots than make. Even Steph Curry only made 40% of threes in his career. But that’s okay and that’s normal.
Society really glorifies winning. We’re expected to get started on something and immediately excel. If we don’t, we’re quickly discouraged from continuing to try. That’s profoundly absurd. Not getting the space to learn through failure, perhaps because of how competitive the world has become, just doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t like the idea of judging someone solely on success. Let’s be practical here for a second, there’s no way you won’t fail more than succeed. To win a game you need to practice and fail multiple times, that’s just the way life is. Even the best of the best fail often. We sit here and see them in their glory and victory, but they’ll all tell you they’ve failed more than won to get where they’re at.
Which is why I think it’s so important to judge someone on their ability to fail and keep going, rather than looking at their wins solely - especially amongst younger folk. That shows real character. Anyone can feel great when they are doing great, but can you stand tall and keep your head held high when your world is flooding? Now that takes grit. That takes strength. That takes faith in yourself to a degree that I think many don’t realize they have. And among these, there are some that can lift themselves up, while bringing others up with them when the world is flooding. These are the people we should surround ourselves with. That’s who I’m working towards being, but I can’t lie it’s really hard.
I haven’t had a major win in a while and that’s been affecting me a lot. But lately, I’ve began to realize it’s not that deep, and there’s no need to overthink. I’m a profound overthinker, but now at 21 I’ve realized I don’t have to analyze everything. I don’t have to do any “soul searching” and all that. I think all we really gotta do in life is just think less, do more, fail fail fail and get right back up and keep going. Do things you enjoy, do things that fascinate you and excite you. Do stuff that’s good for you and puts you in the path towards where you want to be right now. Align yourself in the direction you want to head in and just keep walking one step at a time and you’ll get where you want. I think it’s really as simple as that.
I spent so much of my youth trying to understand this “me”, but I’m constantly changing. What I know about myself one day may not necessarily be true the next. Sure, some basics stay stagnant, but it’s much easier to embrace yourself the way you are at each moment and just keep doing things. So instead of sitting around and wasting time trying to find yourself, just keep doing things till you start to find what you deeply want to do and then focus in on that and keep doing it. The truth is you’ll find yourself through living, not through thinking.
Now, there are going to be times when you don’t feel like doing what you’re doing, and you get confused about whether you like it anymore or not. This can arise from failing repeatedly or just losing interest in it. Don’t stop doing something you loved doing just because you haven’t been doing it well for a period. That’s wild. You know why? It’s because that period will pass. It will all pass. Think about all the tough times in your life - they passed, and any challenges you're facing now will also pass.
This is where resilience kicks in and I believe this is where success in any field is determined. Can you get hit and get back up? That’s the big question. As I said before, no matter how great you started out at something, you will fail at it. Sure, you could make the case that there are some that probably won’t fail, but let’s be grounded in reality for a second, that’s an extremely tiny subset of the population, if any at all. You need to give yourself time and forgive yourself for your failures. Be kind to yourself sometimes. Forgiving yourself is such a powerful skill to have (yes, I do think it’s a skill) and probably the one I find hardest to master. Many will give up and quit due to periods of failure, but the ones that don’t will be the ones that lead in any field with time.
Look, I’m not saying you should continue to do something that you’re not interested in anymore. If you're genuinely not into it anymore, then it's okay to explore other things. But don’t let lack of interest cultivate due to failure. You'll know when you're truly not interested anymore - you'll feel a genuine lack of passion. Trust your gut. Your instincts come from all your life experiences and it’s usually going to steer you so trust it. This goes with my belief that you’ll likely know yourself better than anyone else ever will know you. Nobody can put their feet in your shoes, so you might as well start trusting yourself, no?
Anyways, I truly believe that life will work out if you do the following: trust your gut, forgive yourself and give yourself time, keep working at it by giving your best each day - whether that's 10% or 110% - and, most importantly, embrace your failures and don't give up. There will be ups and downs. There will be wins, and many many losses. Things won't magically work out - that's reality - but there's no need to overthink it. It'll all work itself out if you keep your head up through the struggles and keep pushing. Just keep at it. Even if your problems and struggles feel like insurmountable mountains, they can be broken down, just as the great Himalayas will also eventually erode down to plains.