Whose Failure Is It?

I was talking to my friend this week about wanting to do a podcast episode on failure and she laughed in my face. You won’t believe the audacity of that young lady. She ended her laughter with “I’d be curious to listen to that episode because as far as I’m concerned, you don’t know what failure is. Whatever you’ve experienced in life are just lessons, not failures”

Ah! My chest! Is it me this girl is making jest of like this? But as a gentle person that I am, I kept my cool (hehe) and asked why she would say that.

She said it was because she knew what real failure was, considering she failed at her marriage. My eyebrows went up. Huh??? Failed at what marriage please? How’s that marriage failing your failure? I disagreed.

I laid down my arguments. I was right here through what that marriage actually cost her, watching her leave a situation no one should have to endure, just to be safe. And still, somehow, she’d internalized the marriage failing as her failure. Nopes. I wasn’t having it.

But the conversation opened my eyes to something. There’s a difference between us failing at something and something failing. Sometimes, there’s just nothing different we could have done that would have changed the outcome, and we need to stop owning failures that aren’t ours.

So, I got up from the sitting room where we were having the conversation, went into the bedroom, took my phone out, and recorded my podcast episode on failure. Just that this time, it was about knowing what failure to own and which one was outside our control.

You can take a listen on Spotify, Apple, or right here 👇🏾

Thanks for reading amigo. Enjoy your weekend ❤️