We. The Failures.

Walking on sunshine.

Walking o work the other day, the feeling of emptiness hit me hard. A few days ago, I talked with my coworker, about failure, why do we feel like that, and that triggered an entire afternoon of life evaluation. I thought about my life and my achievements and I came up with a few things that keep me grounded to my core. But most of what I wanted out for my life doesn’t exist.

I can’t keep a job for long periods, I don’t have an important degree, I don’t have what everyone calls a career. I also have a problem keeping up with my projects, if you read this blog you are probably aware of it by now. I have many projects and I can’t keep the focus on only one thing. It feels like a failure.

We are what the coaches would consider calling a failure. We sleep a lot. We eat compulsively, we cry over our small failures or just get plain angry with ourselves and we don’t stick with anything, rarely we get things done completely because we tend to feel insecure and change our minds along the way. I’m that person and most of my friends are like that too. That’s ok. We keep trying.

That’s called life.

Navigating life is an adventure. Trial and error is part of what makes us who we are, and if the coaches are giving you unrealistic expectations of life for you to be always pursuing something unreachable, let them try it. I wrote many times here on this blog how much I have failed in my life. The years are passing by and yet nothing.

I didn’t have a career plan at 20 I didn’t manage to be rich at the age of 25. Married with a new apartment by 30. Having kids by 32, and retired millionaire with my life savings in Florida. That’s the life the insurance commercial tries to sell us and some of us grow up believing that this is how the normal life should go.

 “Some people spend their entire life, running on a wheel like a hamster because someone told them that this is how they are supposed to live. I did that with the so-called American Dream. Or as I’m learning now, just The Dream.”

In my country, we watched American movies, like Home Alone or Down to you, and it was ingrained in our minds with the American lifestyle. You either live in a nice suburban house or you live in a super cool place, like New York City.

America is not like what you see in Younger, the tv show

The cool city, trendy outfits, the fantastic job with reliable coworkers only exist on tv. So some of us, growing up poor, decides this is the life we should pursue in the United States. We take care of the dream like a fragile plan, needing to be water every day and taken care, so it doesn’t die. Until we get here and nothing is the same as it is in the movies.

Disappointed to realize that Americans struggle and they struggle every day. Americans don’t have medical insurance or free health care or free universities. Everyone either tries for a scholarship or gets into debt. A lot of debt. Some of them buy the biggest house and car, even if they can’t afford it.

I guess they were sold the wrong American dream too. Some of them don’t have a career, some of them can’t get married. And it’s all fine.

Invest in yourself first. Learn how to love who you are.

Some people spend so much time investing in the wrong people because they are scared to be alone. Be alone had its perks. I was alone for the longest time, yes getting wrongly involved with weird guys, until the day I decided I was going to learn how to love myself first.

What do I like to do, which is my favorite restaurant, what kind of music do I like, and Who I am? So I open the door to new opportunities and Josh came along. Accepting all my weirdness has the same bad taste in music as me, loves traveling and eating out. And his American dream is also broken.

Learning along the way that Americans don’t have it all, made me realize that the problem was not just me. I spend the majority of the time writing about the situations I’ve been in, thinking that it had something to do with me being an immigrant. Until I get some comments from friends relating to my experiences. It made me realize that the grass is always greener on the other side.

Don’t buy into unrealistic expectations social media sells you.

We are constantly sold expectations, on how we should live our lives, and most of the time we end up broken. Leading up to reflect on why other people have what we don’t have or why it doesn’t work the same. I’m tired of this regular state of unhappiness and unfulfillment. It always feels like people are always miles ahead of you. Social Media doesn’t help, as all those leeches are trying to, guess what gets ahead of you, like you are in a live competition.

I always ask myself what happened when I look back at my early 20’s and my expectations. Was I too lazy to try? Did I not try hard enough? What could I have done differently? Questions that live in my head rent-free.

The answer is nothing.

I’m not a failure and you are not a failure either. There is time for a change, even for small changes to make yourself happy. My problem was, I gave my life away to the hospitality industry and never got anything back, besides anger, calluses, and terrible back pain.

Now I’m working on getting whatever makes me happy done, like right now for example. I’m writing this post seating at a super cool Swedish coffee shop, at Union Station, in Downtown Denver.

Find happiness in small things. Happiness is a feeling, like sadness and anger. People don’t need to be happy 100% of the time. Or happy for a lifetime. It’s all made of moments, like a big life puzzle. Every day you find a different piece, and sometimes you just get mad and start all over. I did star over, multiple times.

One day, the planets will align and my projects will get done.

I have faith that someday I will wake up and the planets will be aligned with the universe and I’m going to finally take a step further to work on my calling. Someday LIVE OUT LOUD TOO Productions will come out of the paper.

You are not a failure. Life is a beautiful, mysterious thing to navigate. Hopefully, you are having a good week, if not just kick to for another day.

I’m kicking it for several days this week.

This was a short post only because I don’t want to be extending if it’s not needed. I got my message out and I hope these few words of encouragement help you if you are struggling with self-confidence too. Let me know in the comments if you ever felt like a failure and what did you do to get over this feeling? I’m looking for some encouragement too!

I see you around on Twitter or Instagram!

JS.

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