Everyone who has fucked up or failed, please check in.

[yvr girl]

I say we learn more from our failures than anything else.

I was always a model student in high school. Partly because that's the way I am, but also because my dad was a teacher in my school, and he would have know the instant I stepped out of line.

I basically blew off my first year of college. I never went to class, didn't hand in papers etc. My grades reflected my actions.

I lived to tell the tale. I also learned that it is much better motivation to do something to fulfill a personal goal than to please someone.

[Mizmoon]

1. NOt mee - n ever!

:D

[HEyHEY]

2. I've failed miserable many times

The last was taking a job in ad sales... selling ads for the Arts Club theatre and Vancouver Playhouse.... great paying job..unreal money... but couldn't take the stress..

A good bonus, ever since then... everything else is a piece of cake.

[JohnKleeb]

3. Yes

and damnit its why I dont get to go to a four year college, I am still a little upset about it all.

[HEyHEY]

9. You'll come to realize it's not that big a deal

[JohnKleeb]

10. Its not I know but I am pissed at myself

[Mutley]

4. I failed out of school.

Long story. But I'm back in now and I should be graduating in December.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

5. Lucky me

I managed to get myself kicked out of three undergraduate schools - one of them Ivy League, no less - and that left my parents kind of ::: ahem ::: unhappy. So, I was on my own, and that made for adventures I'd never have had otherwise. I wasn't ready for college, didn't especially want to go, and it showed.

Later, I got through college and law school in record times, and everything worked out really well there.

My first lawyer job was with the Federal government - Department of the Interior. I was working for a nutjob, I quickly realized, and, within a month, he fired me. Shocking - you bet. There were no jobs for women back then, not without real connections, which I never had.

So I went out on my own. Practiced law from the front seat of my car when I had to. Banks lent me offices if I did enough real estate closings, and a secretary at the law firm that did the most settlements taught me how to do them, whispering to me, "I'll do anything to help a woman get ahead in this business."

Little by little, I worked my way into an office of my own. Then I was able to hire a secretary. Then a paralegal. Then others.

Then I bought the building.

That was just the beginning.

None of this would have happened if I hadn't partied like the best wild woman in the world when I started college.

It taught me to take risks. And that's something you don't learn without a shitload of failure to fertilize your courage.

[northzax]

6. We've been waiting all year

for someone to just say,
everyone fucks up,
it's gonna be ok.

-rilo kiley

[Heidi]

7. If it makes you a better version of yourself as a human being . . .

is it really a f*ck up? Wouldn't that be more of an evolution? :shrug: (I sometimes think we beat ourselves up too much for this stuff.)

[mac56]

8. Constantly.

But if I didn't do the stupid stuff I did back when I did it, I'd be doing it (or worse) now.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

11. Believe it or not, I've had some serious failures...

In school, and at work. It's not that I'm stupid. Sometimes I just don't believe in myself, and that transfers into my work/study behaviour. Unconsciously also, I use the mistakes to draw attention to myself...and then there's trouble. These are learned behaviours from my childhood, from how my parents treated me. Self-esteem plays a HUGE part in this.

But I survived all my troubles, had a good career, and am now retired. Looking back on my mistakes allows me to have empathy for anyone who is struggling with their own. I hold my head up, because I now know that I am a good person, and worthy of other people's respect. Of course, I still make mistakes, but they no longer devastate me the way they used to.