“If you are ever tempted to look for outside approval, realize that you have compromised your integrity. If you need a witness, be your own.”

–Epictetus

Like everyone on this planet I have failed, and failed often. I continue to fail to this day. Does this make me a loser, a failure at life? Maybe it does to some people, in their opinions , from the standpoint of their expectations…But, who are they? Are they the best judges of me? Are they the authority to base my own self worth on? A stranger with but a glimpse of me, not worth a few moments in time, all of a sudden has the power to judge and condemn my worth as a man, a man who has lived on this planet for twenty eight years? Twenty Eight years of life and a stranger with a glimpse of me all of a sudden is given that sort of power? Obviously this is utter nonsense, a failure in and of itself, this is a breach of my personal integrity. Marcus Aurelius once said “It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.”

Human beings are very social creatures, we feed off of each other in such a dynamic and connected way, that I think it is safe to say that social skills are necessary for our personal survival in this world. Without connecting to others on personal levels, whether it be friends, romantic partners, acquaintances, teammates , partners, teachers, co-workers or all of the above, we need each other to feel complete. Loneliness is an innate fear for us human beings, we fear it whether we admit it to ourselves or not. This need we have for positive social interaction with others of our own kind, often will have us look outward for approval of things that are inward. By saying that we, “look outward for approval of things that are inward”, I mean, when we step out into our world, our daily life, and we look to others for approval, we look to others as if to ask, “Is what I am doing acceptable?”, “Is who I am OK?”, but that question is not for others to answer, they do not have a good idea of who you truly are, not as much as you, yourself do. They are judging you based on a snapshot, when you are the equivalent of multiple photo albums! Your inner-self , the “you”, that only YOU, yourself, truly knows, cannot possibly be judged by others accurately.

I read a quote the other day that said something along the lines of “Stop comparing yourself to people based on what you see, in person, in social media or otherwise, because every time you compare yourself to someone you are inadvertently comparing your behind the scenes to their highlight reel”. What I believe this means is, comparing yourself to others is tricky, a lot of people put on their best face everyday but you do not see their insecurities , their struggles, but you are constantly aware of your own, so to you, others seem like “normal” people or even “Ideal” people, but they have as many problems as you do most likely and, depending on how you carry yourself, they may envy a part of you that you don’t know. Just forget about comparing yourself, you are adequate, you have something to offer, even if it is something you see as small, it is still something, and if you cannot think of something you can offer, FIND IT, make it a passion. No one is perfect, you are beautiful, you are a human, your personal struggles, your pain, it is all life, and NONE of us know exactly what we are doing. We all just kind of live, don’t let the status quo fool you into thinking you are doing things wrong, live freely, and as long as you do not harm others or yourself, go for it

We have a society, a system, that has rules and social norms, we are bombarded with expectations constantly. However, just remember, YOU know who you are better than anyone else. You do not need others to witness your greatness, you do not need their approval. Remember who YOU are, remember the good things you have done when there was no witness but yourself to see it. That is a true testament of your character, yes we have a dark side and things we are ashamed of but, everyone does and if you know deep inside that you are a good person and that when no one is around you will still be that same good person then you need nothing but that self assurance.

Now, this does not mean that you can ignore your own flaws, we all have flaws, if you are grumpy or generally an unhappy person and take it out on others, you need to work on that, if you are mean to people and do bad things when no one is around to see , then you need to hold yourself accountable, no good will come from hidden negativity. All of that negativity just stays with you, eats away at you and drags you down, deeper and deeper until you can’t even recognize yourself anymore. Work on the flaws you have but do so as your own witness. Your flaws do not define you, we all are FAR too complex to be solely defined by the good or bad things we have done in the past, it’s deeper than that. There is a root cause for all of our behaviors and quirks, there is a root cause for all of our individual fears, likes, and opinions. We need to hold ourselves accountable, work on ourselves and be our own witness. No one can do it for us, we know ourselves better than anyone. If we just sit back and remember that only WE can know ourselves better than others deep down inside, we can shed this pressure of societal expectations and truly contribute the best individual “us” that we can to the world.

My failures are my teachers, I experience failures often, but I learn from them, I get better from them, I keeping doing, there is no try. I’ll keep doing until I can’t do anymore. With all that said, I will answer my question from the beginning of this blog post, Do my failures make me a loser, a failure at life? My answer is..No it does not make me a loser or failure at life, not at all, because its not over, life is still going, how can you lose something that is still going, life is a running clock but it’s a clock we can’t see, we do not know when it will end, so we might as well keep doing.

So , NO, my failures, your failures , failure itself is not indicative of losing, or being a failure at life. Failure is an indicator of someone working on life, someone active, someone who can be their own witness to how hard they work. Be your own witness and you will see yourself for what you truly are.

Thank you for reading this, this blog has been very therapeutic for me. The fact that I can share this with others is amazing. Thank you, please subscribe and like this if you would like to hear more from me. I appreciate the support, and I will be back soon with another blog post this week!

Written by: Marcos Lopez 1/20/2020