:: fizzle & flop ::
2:05 AM
I personally needed to reflect a little bit on this whole aspect of failing.
Why?
I failed my driving test yesterday. Rolled back on a hill.
I could ramble on and on about how (a) i'm actually a rather very decent driver (b) the car that I got had a clutch higher than my goals and expectations set for my hopefully bright future and (c) i'm a very decent driver, enough said.
But, what's done is done. I spent a brief 36 hours or so loathing in self misery and balancing off the edge of tears before I got this sort of sick feeling in the pit of my guts. Call it a self realisation, but it was something that really has me gripping onto my every fibre in a not so good way.
This was the first time I've ever had a fail blatantly put out in front of my face. This time in the form of a checkbox marked KANDAS. How terribly demotivating. Throughout school I've never failed an exam, piano exam or not reached the target I set for myself in public exams. I've never lost a competition that I was excited or passionate about joining. I've never had a clear experience of not being able to do something because I wasn't qualified to do it. If this comes off as conceited, well, I'm sorry but that's the whole point here.
The point here is, I was hit so hard by this fail that it literally made me drown in angst and think about my entire life. I have officially concluded, that I lack experience. I lack experience in wanting something for myself and not being able to use my skill and my knowledge to get it. I've been sucked into this whole self built perception that I can do things because I've been able to pull things through so many times before.
To put it crudely: I have too much damn faith in myself, my ego and pride is making me stupid.
Admitting this feels really good.
It made me question how I want to live my life. I fail a driving test once and I question my existence on Earth, that's me. I want it to be a journey thats worth looking back on. I want to gain experiences through the things I pursue, be it good or bad. I don't want to stick in my comfort zone. I don't want to be in a position where I'm given an essay topic about relating an interesting and insightful incident in my life, and not have much solid ground to cover for 800 words. It made me realise that I don't want to live my life putting my passion only into things that I think I'm good at. It dawned on me that I don't take risks in my personal decisions because I'm so afraid of failure, and although it's too late now I could have done a whole lot more throughout my school life. Who knows? If I took risks I could have become an athlete been good at a sport. I could have tried singing instead of stopping after primary school because I realised I was more of an alto than a soprano. I could have been more than a nerd instead of waiting till I was 16 to prove to people that I do actually talk, and I can actually talk a lot.
Instead, my best friends; ego and pride, consoled me through all the opportunities I refused to take. "It's okay Winona, you saved yourself a whole lot of embarrassment." "It's okay Winona, you're happier watching a game than playing it anyway." "It's okay Winona, you're good at studying, stick to it!"
I have learnt a valuable lesson. I don't fail because it happened for a reason, it wasn't meant to be, or there was a screw up in the system. I'll fail because I'm bad at it, and I will loathe for ages and be sad but I will face the fact that it was my own fault and that I need to get my life together. At the end of the day, I would gain so much because I'll end up writing pointless paragraphs about a life changing lesson that I learned through some really petty screw up and I'll never mess my life up that way.
I AM DONE CONSOLING MY SOUL.
BUT I AM STILL, A REALLY DECENT DRIVER.
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