I failed. Let’s just get that out of the way. I failed my board exam. An exam that I never wanted to take, but did so because of my family. Yeah. But as I was talking to Shannon and looking at the wonder of Ava’s eyes, I knew that this would get me to where I wanted to be alot faster than all of the things that I’ve done in the past.

But with all the dedicated studying, sacrifice, head games and determination, I failed. I failed by 7 problems. If I would have gotten 7 more problems right, I would not be writing this post. I would be a rockstar in the office and telling my stories to others how I fucked that big bad p.e. test. But no. I have been telling others how bad the test fucked me.

I’m a big believer that failure is your friend. We fail at many things each and everyday. Most of the time when we think we aren’t failing, we are failing. We are so so damn scared of it. Not me, though. I look forward to meeting my friend and talking things over with him. Even though he isn’t a nice guy. He is insanely honest. Doesn’t bring flowers to the meetings and at times is a dick. When it’s time to tell me how shitty I am he just gets down to his assholey-self of telling me how he beat me and points out all of my weaknesses. He doesn’t give me any praise for what I did right. He doesn’t give a shit. Not at all. His only job is to tell me that I suck and that he looks forward to beating the shit out of me the next time around.

He does allow me to ask questions. Which I appreciate. I sometimes have a laundry list of them. Most times I just take the smack down like a man and after failure has left me alone I go cry in a darkroom.

Again.

He is an asshole. He is in fact a bitch. A mother-fucker of high degree. Someone I would kick in the balls. Spit on and call him worthless. And since we are all being totally authentic, tell him I wished him dead and that he sucks at life. And you know, which is ironic, because he is telling me how much I suck at life. At least at this one particular thing, how much of a shitty competitor I am.

Then I think about it a little. I let the honest words of failure sink in. I still don’t want to see what he is telling me as truth. But soon I have no choice but to face my failure ways straight on. I have to remember what failure told me. How I sucked at trying to beat him. And then soon, I start to see failure’s honest words as improvement areas that I can use to beat the shit out of him next time.

And once my head is clear, I can go to work to improve. Push myself to learn from my mistakes. And to be ready to face failure the next time and win.