Letting Yourself Down

It comes out of nowhere. That feeling...a concrete brick sinking into the pit of your stomach. It's covered with guilt, failure and disappointment. Usually it's the disappointment that stings the most.

I think that it is one of the most basic human feelings to want to be there for another person. Hoping to not let them down. It is something that I think everyone struggles with. No one wants to be a disappointment to the people closest to you. Feeling like a failure fucking sucks.

Unfortunately it is unavoidable. It happens to the best of us.

A topic that pertains to this though, that I wanted to tackle was: letting yourself down.

We have our moral codes and our ethics that we consciously (or subconsciously) live by. From a young age we were influenced from our parents, our surroundings and our experiences to form our own code of conduct and ethics.

The metaphorical lines in the sand we draw for ourselves; making vows and promises that we will never cross certain lines.

In an ideal world, we would never cross those lines, but the reality is that we do. Whenever we drop our standards or do something that compromises what we stand for - It is always a difficult pill to swallow.

We realise how full of imperfections we are, and how, as humans, we are influenced and affected by so much that happens around us.

I struggle with this.

Recently I had a moment where I felt like I was letting myself down. I realise in retrospect that it was over something small, but I honestly felt like I had disappointed myself. I strive to be a good person, and do the "right" thing but sometimes in doing so I set myself up for failure too.

There is no such thing as the "right" thing because what maybe right for you, could hurt someone else.

Everyone is hero in their own story, but yet, they maybe the villain in someone else's.

When something happens that I could have prevented, and it forces me to compromises my standards, naturally that makes me feel like shit.

Of course sometimes things are out of my control, which I cannot fix, but I can control how I react. In some ways, I let it get to me - which only does more harm than good, but the least I can do is dust myself off, and try my best to keep on going on.

A lesson to remember though is that you are not infallible. You are only human.

There are those instances too when we must violate our own promises and standard because life is never a matter of black and white, it is rather a series of experiences and interactions which makes us realise that sometimes we are living in the grey areas.

For example, you promised yourself that you would never cheat and that you hated everyone who cheated. Then out of nowhere came that instance where you found yourself in that situation; either because you got yourself there or because someone else lied to you and you suddenly found yourself in that predicament.

I have learned that while I do still think cheating is wrong, sometimes people screw up. It can be a one time thing, or it can be a issue that people have to work out within themselves but sometimes shit happens. Though, shit which gets caused by people themselves is an entirely other issue on it's own.

Also the instances of lying to those close to you because you know something - a truth that you have no right in revealing, that is going to come and hit them like wrecking ball, so all you can do is put on a brave face and prepare as you watch a unmovable wrecking ball about to damage them.

You feel like shit because there is nothing you can do, but you wait because you know that when that wrecking ball hits, you are going to need to be there for them.

No one wants to feel helpless, but sometimes things happen in such a way that you are struck helpless. Sometimes people need to help themselves because you can only do so much.

I was really interested in finding out what other people had to say on this matter, so I did.

"It feels like you've hit a new low," a colleague shared when asked how it feels when you let yourself down. One gentlemen, who overheard what I was writing about, gave some wisdom on the matter, "Chalk it up to experience. A learning curve - you can do better next time."



I was however, able to connect with this sentiment a female friend shared.

"It will be on my mind for weeks. I will think about the whole time, but then I will just end up disappointing myself... I will just have to deal with it and get over the initial pain afterwards."

Life forces you to adapt your standards and codes of conduct because life is life. You have to be malleable and adaptable because if you don't, then life will knock the shit out of you and beat you into submission.

BUT these are just moments that force us to realise that the line in the sand we drew for ourselves sometimes get washed away by the sea of life, we just have to be prepared to redraw them and repeatedly adjust.

Theo. Over and Out


PS- This blog post started out one way, and then it started taking a very different turn the more I started thinking about it. The reason for this was that I was all ready to say something and for it be a certain way, but the more I thought about it, and how life has affected me the more malleable I had to be.

It came down to a situation of idealism vs reality.

That aside, letting yourself down still sucks so try to be as true to you as you can be when you aren't stretching and adapting for life.