the art of falling flat on your face

i used to think success would feel different. like some grand moment of arrival, where everything clicks into place and the universe nods in approval. but the reality is that success is fleeting. you hit a milestone, feel good for five seconds, and then suddenly, the goalpost moves. what’s next? what now? success, as it turns out, doesn’t teach you much beyond the fact that you’re capable. but failure is a full-time teacher, ruthless in its lessons, relentless in its curriculum.

people love a good success story. they love the curated highlight reel, the inspiring comeback, the “i made it against all odds” narrative. what they don’t love is the in-between—the falling apart, the dead ends, the humiliating rejections that don’t come with a tidy resolution. but that’s where everything real happens. not in the moments where everything works out, but in the ones where nothing does.

there’s something oddly beautiful about failure. it strips away the illusion that you’re special, that life owes you something just because you tried hard. it forces you to sit with your ego, to untangle your self-worth from external validation. when you fail—truly fail, in a way that feels irreversible—you start to see the world differently. you realize no one cares as much as you think they do. that people forget your mistakes faster than you do. that the shame you feel isn’t permanent.