How I ran into it and what did I do

I decided to look for a neurosis of mine to work on, with the help of ChatGPT. My ChatGPT has detailed memories of my personality, so whatever I ask about myself, it gets about 80% to 90% right. In the list of possible neuroses it suggested—almost entirely accurate—one stood out: the fear of failure.

I tried to understand why I have this fear. I realized I was afraid of validating people who wished me harm. It isn’t fair for them to feel validated through dishonest actions. But that didn’t fully make sense, because it shouldn’t affect how I act. I understood that I was reasoning superficially, that the real issue was more hidden than I expected.

So I decided to consult a recent friend. The inner void. I asked him what had been done to me and what perspective I used to have as a child that might have programmed my thoughts this way. And so, he offered me a dose of poison. I drank it, and I envisioned a past where, as a child and teenager, people tried to control me through my mistakes. The more I failed, the easier it was to emotionally manipulate me.

I then decided to take a good dose of self-love as an antidote to the poison running down my throat.

A letter to my childhood ego

Dear Felipe, when the people you cared about the most wished for your failure to maintain control over your life, you should have heard: it’s okay to fail. You won’t validate anyone by failing, and because of that, you won’t be a failure just because they want you to be.

Better yet, it is important that you fail throughout life, and that’s okay because it doesn’t make you a failure. Those who fail are living, trying, being the ideal—because no one is perfect, which makes the act of living a perfect action for you. It is through failure that you will learn. It is the accumulation of imperfect moments that leads you to success. You need to lose to win.

Losing many times is just part of the journey of those who win in life. From now on, I want you to fail many more times so you can understand which obstacles bring you down. If you fail to overcome them, go around them or find another path that leads to the same results. This way, you will always have success in your hands.

Do an experiment! Try to fail on purpose. Ironically, you will see that success will come to you much more often than you imagine. You are an icon of resilience… Thanks to everything you couldn’t do.

image: chatgpt