Intro

“You are going to fail.  You are going to die.”  Definitely not words we like to hear, much less ponder on.  But we don’t hear or ponder them often enough.  They are both related (death is definitive failure in staying alive).  They are both inevitable.  Neither of them is bad in itself; they are facts.  Our response and reaction to them is what matters on our journey to greater manliness.  Today, let’s focus on the first: failure.


Short Exercise 9:

  1. What would you say are the all-time biggest failures of your life? List two of them in a new note on your phone.
  2. What would you say is the most recurrent failure in your life or lifestyle?  The one thing (big or small) that you keep messing up in day after day?
  3. What was/is your reaction to these failures?
  4. Once you’ve completed answering these questions as savagely sincere as possible, proceed to the Commentary.

Commentary:

“A mistake repeated is a choice.”  The only two ways to avoid repeating mistakes or failure:

  1. To avoid trying or striving for anything in the first place.
  2. To learn from them and seek to improve.

There is nothing manly about the first option – that is effectively how stones exist: without trying or striving.  A man is not a stone.  One author additionally points out that precisely because we are meant to be men and not stones, then if we don’t try (to improve, to grow), if we strive for nothing (great in body, mind or soul), if we subscribe to the slogan “I just want to be the way I am”, then we are already failing.  This leaves us with option 2.

To learn from our mistakes and failures requires two things:

  1. To notice and acknowledge our mistakes and failures.
  2. To study why and where it is I failed and what needs to be rectified so that it doesn’t happen again.

With this in mind, revisit your answers to Short Exercise 9. Ponder.

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