I was talking to a friend just now, and he told me he was feeling like a failure. I hate that for him. I hate it for anybody, of course, but I know this guy is good people, and he deserves all good things.
Talking to him made me think of a time in my life when I felt completely and utterly defeated. It was about a year before I gave up everything and moved from Florida to the Pacific Northwest. I don’t have the heart to recount what was going on, but if you want the gory details, you can read them in this post. Suffice it to say that it felt like the end of the f**king universe at the time.
Have you ever tried so hard to achieve your life’s dream that you left it all out on the table? Then imagine discovering that those years of sacrifice and giving up everything to reach your goals wasn’t going to be enough, and now you’re even worse off. I had gambled and I had lost. All my efforts tasted like ashes in my mouth. It felt like I would have had to climb upward to dig out from under pond scum at that point. I had nothing more to give.
I spent the next year in a foggy fever dream, and things went from bad to worse. The person I loved most died unexpectedly, my health took a nosedive, I was kicked out of my apartment, and I was dropping even further below the poverty line. This was not sustainable. I could not see my way forward. I was struggling to just tread water, and I expected to be doing that for the rest of my life. The thought exhausted me.
And then something totally unexpected happened. A coworker told me about a job opening in Seattle. The job entailed doing the exact same thing I was doing now, only at three times the pay and with actual benefits.
I could barely hear my coworker through the thick layer of pond scum, misery, and defeat pressing down upon me, but “three times the pay” got my attention. I gathered what little strength I had left to attempt one more time to drastically improve my life. It took everything in me to apply for the job.
To my utter shock, upon receiving my application, they were willing to interview me over the phone, and in that era before Zoom calls, they hired me sight unseen. I figured I had nothing to lose at this point, so off I went to give my life a huge makeover.
I’m not going to say it was easy. I was moving 3100 miles, to a place I had never been, where I knew no one. I spent the first few years feeling lonely and scared. But I was also excited. I had hope. There were possibilities.
When I began to get my financial feet back up under me, I bought a house. Then I found love again (after a few horrific false starts) and I got married. Now we have a nice home and two amazing dogs, and we get to travel and have plans for the future. I love my job, and I love the Seattle area. It’s where I’m supposed to be.
I wish I could go back in time and visit that version of me who had abandoned all hope. I wish I could comfort her and tell her that against all odds, she would land on her feet. At the time, at best, I felt like I was sinking.
I can’t even say that I’ve reached this place of contentment based on any intentional acts on my part. After 50 years of struggling, I just happened to be hit with a series of events that can only be described as coincidence or dumb luck. All I knew was that a life preserver had been thrown in my direction, and I’d have been foolish not to seize it and hold on for dear life.
But here’s the irony. If that catastrophic failure that I mentioned above had turned out differently, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have applied for this job. I probably wouldn’t even have heard of it. I’d most likely still be in Florida, a state I hate, doing work that would have messed up my wrists even more than they are now. I’d be financially struggling, and most likely severely depressed and alone.
So, thank God, thank GOD I failed. I now realize that that failure was the best thing that ever happened to me. It set me on the path I needed to be on to get where I am today. And I love today.
Why am I telling you this? Because I can’t go back and comfort the me who was in despair, but maybe I can comfort you. If you’re feeling like a failure, if you’re feeling lost or alone or helpless or scared or emotionally paralyzed, please hang on. Things will change. And you never know what your future will look like.
Believe me, I know I sound trite. I know that any positive outcome for your life may be all but impossible for you to imagine at the moment. Please know that I speak from experience. You’ll just have to trust me. Life is all about change. You’ll be in a different place, emotionally if not physically, 5 years from now, just as you are currently in a different place than you were 5 years ago.
Look for opportunities and seize them. And realize that some opportunities might come along and smack you upside the head when you least expect them. People will come and go from your life. The world itself is changing so quickly that it’s hard to keep up. But the more changes, the more opportunities you’ll have.
Don’t give up. Because you just never know. Just sayin’.
I’ll leave you now with a poem called Pendulum, by Glenn Meisenheimer. Enjoy!
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