Clearly I have failed. In so many things and in so many ways. Some days these failures actually have a visceral effect on me and some days I just chalk it up to life.
The easy to take failures are ones that maybe were not totally in my control. It’s easier to accept the ones where success or failure was tipped in the wrong direction by things which I could not change or assert enough influence.
The visceral failures are the ones most difficult to cope with. These are things I felt I had control. I had the bases covered. I knew where I started and I knew where the goalpost was. I had a strategy. I feel I’ve done absolutely everything I could have done. I feel I made all the right decisions and took the right actions. I thought what I set out to do succeeded. Then I find that all my efforts were in vain. Little of what I set out to accomplish actually happened. I crashed and burned and there is no one to blame but myself. That stuff hurts. I can’t fix it either. It’s just there and will always be there.
The positive side of it is that once I accept the failure I can move on. My problem is that I haven’t succeeded at acceptance yet. Not a single time.