Failure--From the book The Search For Significance, by Robert S. McGee
It’s crazy
all the things that I have been learning in just a short amount of time. I knew
that there were different things that were going wrong in my life but it took a
while to pinpoint what they actually were so that I could work on them. One
thing that is kind of a review for me, is that we are the way we are because of
the way we think about ourselves. I know that I’m not the only one who feels
the way I do, but I guess it was comforting to know that other people think in
their minds “nobody will ever love me. If people really knew me they wouldn’t
like me. I’ve been a failure all my life, and I guess I always will be. Not
even God really cares about me”. Another thing I’ve heard before that I’ve had
a hard time understanding, is that God really does want to be close to us. He
actually WANTS to know when we’re mad at him, messed up by mistakes we made or
people around us made, and he even wants to know when we just don’t care
anymore. I guess when I think about it, I know that even if I don’t tell God
that I don’t care, he already knows that. Statements like: all sins past,
present, and future, are forgiven. You’re a child of God, you have eternal
life, you’re NOT under Satan’s power, Christ is in you, you’re new, you’re made
right with God, you have a relationship with him, and God completely accepts
you were things I had heard about before but they didn’t really have a meaning
to me till I thought about each statement and personalized the meanings. We
ignore evidence and only believe what our human minds can actually understand.
It
probably sounds crazy that I think I just discovered this, but I don’t think I
really realized that when we base our worth on our ability to perform or on the
opinions of others, we leave ourselves feeling full of fear, insecurity, and
anger. With my small group, we’re going through the different fears that are
common to tons of people. The way we act is based off of what we believe, so I
guess the devil focuses mainly on our beliefs cause he knows that if he changes
our beliefs, we’ll act differently and maybe eventually get messed up. One fear
that he uses to get us off tract is the fear of failure. I actually laughed
when I thought about how much better my life could be if I got over the fear of
failure. You either think success will make you happy, or you just don’t want
to be a loser. Fact is, some failure is going to be inevitable even for the
greatest people on earth. Michael Jordan said “I’ve failed over and over and
over again in my life. And that…is why I succeed”. When you base your
self-worth on how perfectly you perform, you’re just setting yourself up for
continual frustration. It guarantees that you will spend most of your time
living in fear of being a failure, and the rest of your time feeling like a
loser. There are several “symptoms” people will have if they have the fear of
failure. The first one is Perfectionism- you freak out about failing, maybe
even over the little things. Instead of looking at all the ways that you’ve succeeded
before, you tend to look at the one thing that went wrong and beat yourself up
for it. Second one, is Avoidance of Risks- risk-avoiders are unwilling to do
anything they might not succeed at. They sometimes miss out on fun, activities,
and close friendships and relationships because the risk of failure is too
great. Third one, is Anger and Resentment- these are the people who regard that
correction or people trying to help them with something is a personal attack
instead of just help. Fourth one is Chemical addiction-some people try to ease
the sting of failure by taking drugs or drinking. When you finally come out of
it, you’re worse than before. The fifth one is Dishonesty-basically just
happens with people who are bent on succeeding in school to an extreme degree,
so they plagiarize for school papers, or they exaggerate truths to make
themselves look better than they really are so people won’t know that they
actually failed. Sixth one is Pride- which in this case with the fear of
failure, is really a disguise of self-confidence, which is a mask to hide the
fear of failure. Seventh, is Anxiety and Fear-you feel like so much revolves on
how well you do, and you’re certain you’ll screw up. It normally occurs when
there is the strong possibility of failure. The greater the risk, the stronger
the anxiety and fear grip our hearts and control decisions. And the last one is
Depression- repeated failure leads us to convince ourselves that we’re
worthless, and you either become lethargic and passive, or angry at the world.
With God’s death, our failures, mistakes- everything past, present, and future,
were forgiven and forgotten. God doesn’t hold those things against you, and
neither should you. Be and do the best you can, but don’t think less of
yourself when you fail. Your actions have nothing to do with God’s love for
you, he’ll never love you less, and he loves you so much that nothing you could
do will make him love you more, cause it’s already the largest amount of love
he has. So let your failures, fears, mistakes, everything go, don’t dwell on
them. Don’t let yourself fear failure, cause that fear will only hold you back.
Only when we let go of fear, do we really begin to live, and love.
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