To Fail is to Truly Live

Failure is an ugly word. To fail is to be a loser--something unclean and decidedly uncool.

Most of us do everything in our power to avoid failure, because failure is synonymous with worthless. And no one wants to feel worthless.

So we don't begin. Because there is failure with its embarrassment and shame whispering in our ear, "Quit. Don't do it. Run away."

That's the real failure--surrendering to that fear in your head. It's not putting yourself out there and coming up short; it's being afraid to start.

My own failures have been of the common sort -- sports, school, women, the usual. You know, the basics of being male, middleclass and white (thanks Ben Folds).

But if I had to narrow my failures down to one area, and I will because I have a couple hundred more words to go, it would be women.

Yes, women and their fickle, flaky ways. To talk to a variety of women is to become aware of failure in many forms, even if you're a modern Don Juan, Casanova or that tall magician guy from VH1.

I like to think I am an average looking guy, neither overly blessed nor hideously cursed (you can just ignore the above picture). I talk real good like and I smell of man musk.

But I fought an uphill battle to reach my current charismatic charm (opinions vary).

In high school I had the self-awareness of a garden gnome. Most of my time was spent playing baseball, table tennis or Halo. This doesn't make for a well-rounded person (though I am still above average at both table tennis and Halo).

Then I got to Auburn and things got all mixed up.

I started reading books and writing and failing chemistry and generally changing who I was on a bedrock level.

At some point during my metamorphosis I said to myself, "Look Ben (yeah, I address myself by name), there are lots of pretty women here. Talk to them. Be fruitful and multiply. Your God commands it."

So I did. Well, talk to them at least. Of course, me talking took on odd forms as I went along.

See I have this borderline obsession with saying the unexpected. I think it stems from not wanting to be boring.

I, however, go too far the other direction, ending with me being labeled "weird," "the strangest person I've ever met" or a "word wizard."

My future occupation has been everything from juggler to magician to alcoholic to used cars salesman to alcoholic used cars salesman. I've told ridiculous stories and pointless lies.

I told a girl I met on a recent road trip I was a palm reader. I then read her palm and told her she was mentally handicapped. I walked back from the beach alone.

To quote Kurt Vonnegut, "So it goes."

Whenever we say something we expect a certain reaction based on past experiences.

This is why we ask the stock "major, hometown, year" questions. We know, or think we know, what to expect.

So we keep asking them because they are safe and there is little chance of failure. Fail bad, safe good.

So yeah, you can't win them all. Failure is a part of basic human experience. It is inescapable.

But the real failure is being afraid to act. Not getting an 'F' or being laughed off stage or getting slapped.

So go try something new, something you are going to fail at, because to be great at anything requires failure. You might even fail a lot. Don't surrender. Keep trying. Keep failing.

I tried to think of some clever closer, an interesting anecdote or some witty observation, but all I could think of were cliches.

So I will further endear myself (ladies...) with another pretentious literary quotation, this one from Samuel Beckett: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."