You Will F*ck it Up
Then you’ll f*ck it up again. But you choose to learn from it or not.
In my 20s and 30s, I had no idea who I wanted to be. Because of that, I had a tough time staying in any given job or relationship.
There are a few interesting patterns you can see when you look at my life. For example, I’ve never lived in the same home for more than 10 years. Same general neighborhood, sure. But never the same home. Part of that was due to an inability to commit to anything.
Why was I unable to commit? Fear of failure. An equal fear of success. Fear that I would miss out on something better if I was in this job, that relationship, or living in that place. All sorts of what ifs, real and imagined, swimming around my head.
Overall, it was always about one thing. That I would f*ck it up. It didn’t matter what “it” was. Job, relationship, car, home, plan? I was terrified that I would f*ck it up.
And I did. Because you will f*ck it up. Frequently.
When this happens – and trust me, it will – you have a choice. Learn and grow from it or seek to place blame, deny, and shrink from it. The choice of what to do, where to go, who to be, and everything else involving you and your life is utterly, wholly, and completely up to you.
What did you learn or not?
It is utterly impossible not to f*ck it up along the way. Nobody is perfect. Or, more accurately, everyone is perfectly imperfect.
I spent almost 2 decades defining insanity (as in the famous quote “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”). Same wobbly, halfway decent job prospect, same half-assed attempt at a relationship, same partial commitment to calling a place home, and so on. Looking back, I can see why I was always at a crossroads and feeling disconnected.
Eventually, I learned. I stopped trying to fit into the monogamy box and started accepting I was polyamorous. Rather than keep accepting the same crap jobs, I sought and took better ones, then began to write and publish more. I found what home means, more than the address.
Yeah, I was able to f*ck it up lots of times. For a long time, I didn’t learn jack shit from that. Then, via mindfulness, therapy, and self-awareness work, I came to understand.
That’s great. Does that mean I won’t f*ck it up anymore? Nope.
You will f*ck it up
You, me, Trump, Harris, that amazing celebrity, your family, friends, and everyone else on Planet Earth – all 8 billion (8,000,000,000) people – will f*ck it up from time to time.
It doesn’t matter where you come from, who you are, what you do, if you’re a good person or a bad person – you will f*ck it up. To what degree and extent will vary. Might only be a little, might be a whole lot, or anywhere in between.
One of the hardest things I’ve had to do was learn this truth. Because you will f*ck it up, but you choose to learn from it or not afterward. Yet it’s part of life, of the human experience, and you can’t do anything about that.
I work hard to get shit right in my life. Yet, I still f*ck it up from time to time. I know that when that happens, I have a choice. Learn and grow from it. Or seek to place blame, deny, and shrink from it. The former empowers you and creates potential and possibilities. The latter disempowers you and leads to ineffectuality and fearfulness.
The choice, of course, is yours. Via mindfulness, you can see what that looks like.
Mindfulness when you f*ck it up
You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. You’re the ultimate judge, jury, and executioner of your sense of wellness and wellbeing. The power to empower yourself comes via active conscious awareness, which is mindfulness.
Mindfulness is awareness of what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, if your approach is positive or negative, and what you are or aren’t doing. These elements only exist, here and now, in the present, in your conscious mind. They are also the only things over which you have complete and total control.
Nobody else can think, feel, intend, or act for you. There’s nobody but you who chooses to approach your life from a positive or negative place. All that is in your power to do with as you please.
When you f*ck it up, you decide what comes next. You choose to learn, seek to place blame, or simply keep going and maintaining your insanity.
Recognizing and acknowledging that you will f*ck it up is surprisingly freeing. That’s because it shows you that you are not a bad person, because everyone can, will, and does f*ck it up along the way.
Mindfulness, being present here and now, shows you that you’re not alone. And though you will f*ck it up, then likely f*ck it up again, so does everyone else.
Can you see how you are not less than anyone else when you f*ck it up because we all f*ck it up?
This is the six-hundred-sixty-sixth (666) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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