How Do You Know When You've Won at Life?

I was texting a girl recently on Instagram and in my attempt to move the conversation forward I asked her what is your biggest fear?

In the way 20 year olds who’ve begun to understand the realities and burdens of life do, she replied, “Failing.”

“At what?” I asked, “Failing is such a grand thing.”

“Life.”

I realize I could have just said ‘wow, that’s deep’ and moved on. But I’ve overgrown the faux platitudes my mates like to indulge in. So I dig deeper.

“This is too vague. We fail all the time. What does failing mean to you?”

“Life is systematic. Failing is part of the process,” she says, “you do this to get that, and sometimes it works out. Other times it doesn’t. Failure is part of the process yeah… but this process… this entire journey is supposed to yield a result.

“And I find myself always thinking, what if it doesn’t? What if I spend my life creating a build up for something that becomes a collosal failure. Then all the seemingly small wins and losses become inconsequential. Because when it really mattered, you failed. I failed.”

Now, that was deep. That was really deep. In fact I could have told her how much this makes sense to me. How much this kept me awake for a long time till I figured it out. I could even have replied ‘deep’ and given her the satisfaction of feeling heard.

I could have told her that I think failures, even collosal failures, are all propellers that move us towards something greater as long as we don’t stop moving. But no. I wanted more.

So I say, “okay, that makes sense to me.”

Then I follow up with the big question, but how do you know when you’ve won?

It’s been three weeks and she still hasn’t answered the question. Or replied my texts. I didn’t get my more.

She put up a post on her story about how she sunk into depression for like a week (after I sent that text), and sometimes I wonder if I caused that.

I didn’t.

Asides external physical/emotional abuse, I believe everyone is responsible for how they respond to their triggers.

But that’s not why I write this. I’m here because as the weeks have dredged my mind continues to ask me the same question:

How Do You Know When You’ve Won?

I want to win at life. I think about that over and over again. I want to win at life.

But how do you know when you’ve won?

To get my answer, I have to be more specific about what I’m asking.

Am I asking how do I know when I’ve won the game that is life? 

To know the answer means that I have to die first. I don’t want to do that yet.

So I reframe the question into something my mind can partly see:

How do I know when I’ve won at the end of 6 months?

The answer to that is a bit easier to define.

I have 3 major goals I want to achieve financially, physically and emotionally.

If I don’t hit these goals I have failed. Simple. I’ve found my answer.

Now, I may not be able to discuss the details with you fully, but I will admit something to you.

Something that reminds me, and you, of my unrelenting human nature.

Over the course of the last seven months, I have engaged in different self-sabotaging behaviours that prevent me from moving steadily towards my goals.

In simple engllish: I am fucking myself up with my own two hands.

My awareness of this, makes me miserable and leads me to another story that ponders the question:

Am I the Problem?

My friend may not like that I’m telling this story, but she doesn’t read my newsletters so I guess I’m safe.

My friend consistently feels a sharp pain in her body and she’s been trying to diagnose the cause for months now.

She’s gone to multiple doctors, done multiple tests, and the results are the same: nothing.

So if there’s nothing, what could be the source of her pain?

Now at the end of every test every one of her doctors tells her a variation of the same thing:  I think you have psychosomatic disorder. Let us refer you to a psychiatrist.

And every time she changes the doctors because according to her, they —– who have done this doctoring thing for at least ten years —– don’t know what they’re talking about.

If you don’t know what psychosomatic disorder is allow me to explain:

Psychosomatic disorder is a psychological condition where the body suffers a range of physical symptoms that don’t have any physiological or medical explanation.

People with this condition usually suffer excessive mental stress from their thoughts or feelings. Other times it happens as a trauma response.

Basically it’s like having constant pain in your joints without being injured or having arthritis.

When doctor’s notice this they refer you to a psychiatrist who checks your mental profile. What we’ve found is that whenever you and your therapist find the cause of your mental or emotional pain and resolve it, the pain disappears completely, as if it were never there.

Right now my friend is set to go for a brain MRI and an EMG (look them up if you’re curious).

These are the final tests she needs to do to discover the source of her pain. The final test to see if her pain is originating from somewhere in her body.

So while she’s talking to me about this I ask her, why don’t you want to see a therapist?

She says, I just can’t accept that the reason for my pain is me. It has to be something else. It must be something else. Imagine if with everything else that is going on in my life, I find out that the reason for my pain is my own mind, I would kill myself.

I worry about what will happen when these tests also show that, physiologically, there’s nothing wrong with her, and she’s finally forced to face the demons in her head.

But this brings me to my main point.

Admitting the Problem

I think about how many people who can’t accept the single fact that maybe the cause of all their problems is them.

How many people live in self-denial blaming everything for their issues and refuse to take any responsibility for themselves.

And worse, I never imagined that there would be times where I, too, would act in this manner.

The last few weeks have made me aware of my unconscious sabotaging behaviours.

And now I ask myself why I’m holding myself from achieving greatness?

The answer to that is for me to uncover.

But I come to you shameless, admitting my cowardice, admitting that it is July and I am still failing at life.

It is July and I am still failing at life.

Or at least I feel that I am. In the grand scheme of things this may just be a necessary path I must follow to my overwhelming success. It doesn’t matter now.

What matters now is how to get out of this rot.

I am also aware that admitting my failure publicly doesn’t make it automatically go away. I will not automatically repent over night and begin to engage in successful and disciplined actions.

Even a snake does not shed its skin all at once. It must first wear it out, get really uncomfortable before it decides that yes, it is time.

I have become the thing I preach against: the person that waits till life is unbearable before I make a change. And I am ashamed of it.

But while awareness doesn’t bring change automatically, it programs your mind to prepare to fix it. It allows you to gather ideas consciously and unconsciously to make the change that you need to make.

So why do I write this?

I am here because I agree with my friend Su when she said that suffering does not need to be an isolationist act.

I am here because I know I’m not the only one who feels responsible for their failure and is being eaten up by it.

I am here because right now you may be aware of the various ways you are sabotaging your success.

And you isolate yourself and beat yourself for it.

I am here because the next time your skin crawls into itself because of the awareness that you are still failing in your ascent to greatness I want you to remember this: you are not alone in your suffering.

It will not solve your problem. But I do hope it propels you to continue to move yourself forward in healthy and loving ways.

Until next time,

Stay easy,

Dave.