My biggest failure is one that no one knows about. It’s a taunting, burning, suffocating failure, and when I let my guard down, it eats away at me. It terrifies me. It often wears me down. It continues to hurt me…but no one will ever know. No one will ever know about this failure, because I don’t let them. It’s a failure that never sees the light of day. It lives deep within me, because that’s where I’ve made it stay.

 

The unfortunate thing is that it didn’t have to be this way. It all started with a pinch of fear and grew from there. It’s partially made of the failures of my past. Instead of viewing them as lessons, I only saw them as failures. It’s partially made of the opportunities I’ve been too scared to take. I reminded myself that I could fail. This failure is also comprised of the despise I have for myself when I don’t do better. It’s a feeling I’ve let dictate my life.

 

It could have really been something, this failure. It had so much promise and so much hope. It could have made me happy. It could have taken me to places I never would have dreamed about. This may have been the path I was searching for. It could have been great. This failure of mine, it’s shared by so many. It seems so harmless, but the potential behind it makes it failure toxic.

 

My biggest failure is my failure to start.