Loser.
A reckoning with visible failure and invisible success.
”There are currently 19 37 drafts sitting in my folder, formed thoughts that are more than just blurry shapes. It would be easy to publish one of those that has nothing to do with how I am feeling right now. Less effort, less vulnerable and scary. It would be easier to publish a more polished version of me. And maybe I will.
But I know that some of the most transformative work is done in the middle. Not at the end, when it's figured out, neatly placed in a box, archived under 'life lessons', but whilst I am in in the thick of it, in the mess, while it still doesn’t quite make sense. Because writing is how I make it make sense. Writing is how I hear my own heart. Because letting others see the not-knowing, the naked fear, the uncertainty, is how we all feel less lonely. It's how we all feel less wrong. There is a time to let things mature. To leave them to rest, breathe and rise. But there is nothing quite like a raw place of momentary, uncensored, wild truth.”
This ends up being my modus operandi most of the time. I can’t not write from my feelings. And sometimes, it’s just ugly. The way I describe my state right now is often just by arrrgghhhhhhhh screaming shrugging sincerely: ”I don’t know.”
What is your plan?
What are you working on?
Where are you going next?
What is your goal?
What do you dream of?
I. don’t. know.
I don’t know what to tell you.
I just don’t know.
*proceeds to write a whole essay about what she said she didn’t know.*
”Failure doesn’t exist, every failure is just a lesson.”
We hear some version of this echoing throughout every entrepreneur bros’ instagram. I do agree, don’t get me wrong. I absolutely agree.
The problem is, those are just words. In the reality we live in, people generally don’t applaud you for failing. The same people who say this in their TikToks are the ones who probably won’t look at you twice at an event because to them, if you have no success story to tell and no names to drop, you’re not interesting.
Of course, there are levels to this. If you are failing at something at 21, that’s great. It makes sense, you’re still learning, it’s admirable. Go you! If you are 40 though, you get different looks. Believe me you.
People who you thought were friends might even distance themselves from you. Why don’t you have it together by now? Why are you struggling so much? “You’ve been feeling like this for too long now” - a ‘friend’ told me a while ago. A person who had only ever known this version of me because we had only recently met.
It confirmed my worst fear: People don’t want to be around you if you are a sad loser.
The older you get the more failure feels like it’s contagious, a nuisance to have to watch someone try so hard, an inconvenience to be around that energy. People are scared of you and your struggle, turned off, disgusted.
At 20 failure is cute. If you’re still bobbing around at 50, you’re a loser.
{There are also sexist double standards to this, which I can see play out in the dating world. A woman gets a bit more leeway if she isn’t ‘successful’ at a certain age - but a man often does not. He isn’t allowed to still be in crisis at 45. The girlies want a guy who owns a car, has a great income, a purpose and direction and property - even when they have none of it for themselves. This huge topic is for another day.}
There is visible and invisible success, visible and invisible failure - and this is a desperate write-up about both: Can you see it with your eyeballs? Can you touch it? That’s success. According to, well, most people. A life trajectory that goes upwards. Making something that is visible to others: a business, a life’s work, children, property - the likes.