Friend : I've failed as a friend
Son : I've failed as a son
Family : I've failed my siblings being neither roll model, or anything else unless maybe a cautionary tale.
Cousin : I've failed my cousins
Nephew : I've failed in being a nephew, in fact still today I'm not sure what a nephew is supposed to do.
Grandson : maybe here I haven't totally failed but fallen well below where I could have performed.
Uncle : I try to be the best uncle I can, and hope I have time to be a better one, for now I hope I've been a little successful as an uncle, time will tell, but as much as it shreds my heart, and at her age she probably doesn't remember but already there are broken promises, and I won't be there to catch her if she falls, I can only hope as she gets older, she knows were here, all she has to do is twitch a finger. I'll always be there to help her if she wants it.
In almost every way I have failed those that matter in my life, whether I thought I was doing the right thing, or I can say I did what I thought was best, but I'm not going to be my own apologetic, this is about truth. I may be in school now, I may be working now, I was active in church, but that's come off the rails, I've learned I have a pretty heavy moral compass that functioned even in my evil days, and for those that know only this incarnation ask around I was evil, really evil and enjoyed it. Honestly on bad days I still enjoy it, but that's for another day.
Here's a little story time, something I was told and should have heeded but ignored as usual. inside each of us is a white dog and a black dog, by our deeds do we feed them until one grown large by our acts of kindness or selfishness one kills and eats the other. The survivor reigning in our hearts forever after.
Well in my life I fed them both pretty equally and when the fight for my soul came it was hard fast and brutal, I should have died. The white dog won, mostly. For me, instead of devouring the black dog it keeps it contained, can I still become that cruel selfish brutal narcissistic self serving person, yes! Sometimes I want to, but I see the pain, hurt and damage it's caused to those I love, and try to let the white dog do it's thing. Honestly, attack or hurt those I care about and too often that black dog is off it's chain and I'm in action before I know it, it's why I love my other half, she understands that dog, realizes why it reacts and usually can control it. If it hadn't left so much carnage in it's wake I'd almost find it funny when certain people treat me unkindly knowing in the past they'd soon be facing the black dog, now I'm content or at least tolerate there behavior because I'll never really know if that fight is over, one day I may slip and act wrongly and feed that black dog one too many times and not recognize the man in the mirror.
If I find a faith that matches with my own moral compass, I'll be happy.
Formula for failure, for me anyway, comes down to all things being relative, the greater distance from the family core the less influence and importance your success or failure means. I. E. Your results are most important to your core/immediate family and decreases as you distance yourself to other relationships such as extended family, crazy as it sounds I have a formula and graphs illustrating my point, but ultimately there irrelevant to the main story here.
In almost every way either through youth, selfishness, health, whatever the
reason I have been a total failure.
For all the many gifts I've been given I've been an astonishing failure, as a son, as a brother, as a grand-son I've been maybe marginally better but still my narcissism and ego have continued to show more losses than wins, where my grandparents are concerned. Continuing the circle out I've failed aunts and uncles, cousins, my niece. Ultimately I've failed them all, and now only after forty do I see my error and it's mostly too late to change the damage done, even friends are more comfortable with me at a distance.
That's not to say after my life hit rock bottom around 2000, leading to a "change" in lifestyle I've tried my best to fix things, to often after being burned by me I'm the only one who wants things fixed. My friends now rarely believe the stories of the me that was they here, which are true, and in fairness to my old friends still choosing to be in my life are usually far kinder than the brutal truth.
Though I am over 40 friendships don't happen like they did when your twenty, just dropping into your lap.
I do leave out two categories in this story relationships and in-laws.
Obviously in the past, my relationships were unhealthy but still good for the most. For all the wrong and evil I've done in life usually it's not aimed at my relationships, and other than a few situations in-laws have always been fair, being on my best, most coercive, charming, sociopathic self, only seeing me on rare occasions I come off good, but after hitting rock bottom and changing everything I learned I was in relationships for all the wrong reasons, it's why I'm thankful for my time in the pre-priesthood, I learned to see woman as people not pieces to be moved across a board for some existential win. I became friends with a young lady, who years later as a young women would become the center of my life, for the first time being honest with in-laws led to constant often violent disagreement. I was not who they see thier daughter with. Yet after six years of healthy relationship, were both happy, in fact after a two week vacation when even the best couple would be wishing for some me time, we find were dreading an end to this time we've had. We've shared part of it with family, hers and mine. The time we spent with hers was probably the nicest time we've spent, was it scene-less, no, the last day was truly spectacular as why I don't like being there, but I need to understand families are different, I love my family and was raised different, mostly my family love, respect and enjoys my wife more than they do me, lol, that's ok she's that sweet, her family will probably never accept me, and I'll have to learn to accept what they can give, after all they've given me thier best already in thier daughter, wether they had any say or not, maybe thier finely getting it and trying in there way, it's just very different to the supporting loving way my family has embraced her, and even though I have failed them, they still reach out helping us in need, giving us that option to get our feet under us, and get a home and a life established.
I guess what I'm trying to say is appreciate your family and those in your life, even when you fail. It might not be to late to fix things, the past is long, the future always growing shorter, so appreciate people for who they are and what they've gone through, you never know when time will run out, and the clock is running on us all.
Lastly the failure yet to be, I think I'm a good husband, I think I'm supportive, I love my wife, (sans church or state but the commitments are all there), we take care of each other, we appreciate each other and we both know it, but the final test, will I be a good father? Will I even get the chance? If I get that option, there's never a guarantee, what sort of father will I be? The dark side is always there ready to embrace you. Different from my fathers, yes I'll be the home body, but all hypotheses aside can I be a father, I'm scared of the world, it's not one I want to live in much less my kids, will my body or my life hold out to see and be apart of those events that matter? Only god in his or her heaven knows, and silence seems the standard answer so in the end all I have is hope and a white dog, and my best friend, partner in crime, my heart and soul, my wife. Hopefully that will be enough and who knows with time and work family and friends can be mended, so as to having failed and being a failure I'll leave the final judgement to those who come after.
Failure is a word I feel that is used inappropriately much of the time. To me the definition of failure is when you have defined requirements that are not met (ie I failed to pay the rent on time). The problem with saying as a friend I am a failure is that being a friend is defined many different ways by many different people.
ReplyDeleteI try to get people to see things less black and white and instead an ever changing sliding scale. I could say I failed at my 1st marriage in being a wife since I walked out of it. I was not a very loving wife, I was distant and cold a lot of the time. I lost my temper at times and I played martyr and victim often. But there was so much more - I was a good provider and I did care deeply for my husband, I also was one of his biggest advocates. Despite our divorce we are very good friends. Was my marriage a failure and I a failure at being a wife? Some would say yes, I would say no. Instead I learned from my mistakes. I talked with my ex-husband, corrected some wrongs and apologized for others. We transformed our dysfunctional marital relationship to a very functional friendship and parenting partnership.
The key was not to consider either ourselves or our marriage a failure but instead a work in progress. We both learned a lot from the past and I know I have made huge changes to not be that person anymore.
Try not to look at your life as a bunch of failures but instead a learning experience. Each relationship that has not gone well can teach you how to better your relationships. Some may never be very good and some people may never let you live your past down, but if you continue to try and change the way you relate to people and constantly ask others what you can do to make the relationship better it will go along way.
I normally do not quote Dr. Phil but recently he had good advice about fixing a relationship. Each side (or if they are not game at you could ask them) ask the other the following 3 questions and then speak the answers openly and honestly:
What I wish you would stop doing because it hurts me so bad.
What I wish you would start doing because I need it so desperately.
What I hope you continue to do because I value it so greatly.
Then maybe you can determine if you are able to work on the relationship.
The most important thing I want to tell you - is saying something has failed or you are a failure is so final. People do not define something as a failure and then feel like they can make it work. If you change your mindset, others around you may also change theirs. Instead of being a failure simply be a work in progress or even a rough draft or a diamond in the rough.
(From someone who does not think you ever failed me or our relationship - and I am not your wife)
I appreciate what your saying, and am thankful you don't feel like I've failed you, but the reality is I have, to me failure is not living up to not just the needs and expectations of others, but of yourself, it's not a permanent state, but a state of events, such as failure as a sibling or a son, these "jobs" have certain requirements. If I was workng at McDonald's and failed to fulfill the obligations in my job description, I'd be fired. Maybe if I'd been a better role model, protected them, been there for them maybe my siblings might not have had the hardships they have, at least they would have been an advocate. Instead today I know very little about the adults they've become, and we have no relationship. Failure is definetly a learning process, I've recently listened to a song called if we were brave, "what would we do if we knew we could not fail, walking out onto the razers edge where fools and dreamers dare to tread, never loosing faith even when I loose my way", cheesy song but I've always been the fool/dreamer walking the razers edge not worried if I fell because I might just fly, but I never accounted that others were watching, and paying for my journey, that when I slipped it caused others who cared pain and might lead others to stray. I've always said from years of martial arts I always learned more from loosing a match than winning, this is true about life as well. When I look at the those who've passed on I'll never have a chance to thank, or apologize to it brings great grief, when I think of those that might still be fixed, and know all to well how little time here we have to mend them, knowing it may be to late already causes great grief, ultimately as thankful as I am to still be here, it's also why I hate birthdays, it's time for that internal moral inventory and clean up before the winter holidays when I'll need to be good with me to get through them, if I can't accept the truth about myself and my own history how can anything ever be mended, agian assuming thier is time and desire to fix things. I have not been a good person, worse really than most people other than maybe my wife will ever know, I can't get a mulligan on my deeds, but I can try to be better as a human being, I think in some ways I've improved thier, but not been successful completely we all have room to grow, and thank you I do appreciate your thoughts and take them to heart, but as a person to those people in that respect I have failed, I should and could have done better been better, unfortunately it took a lot of people getting hurt for me to see my own narcissustic sociopathic tendencies, even accepting them didn't change my behavior, I don't know what it is about hitting rock bottom physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually that can be so cathartic, but I think some relationships continue to be mended, others I wish could be worked on, honestly some I wish I cared to work on instead of doing it for someone else, maybe that will happen, but with school, work, life it's never going to be easier to continue failing, but to me the only ultimate failure is to stop trying, and that I won't do, until I don't have a choice, at some point I'll post the draft I've been working on which illustrates mathematically how I should be dead, still being here means there is something I still need to do, but life is short and tenuous
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