Failosophy

We’ve been told that success is to be known by others, when in truth the most meaningful success is to know ourselves.

And so it’s true to say, I think, that the expression of one’s vulnerability is the ultimate show of strength. Being brave enough to share your wounds is an act of compassion that makes others feel less alone.

If we feel ashamed of something that has gone wrong, or defined negatively by a mistake we have made, the antidote is openness. It’s always a surprise to discover how many other people have felt the same way.

we expect too much of ourselves, we are destined to feel like failures.

When you’re auditioning, your first year of auditioning out in the real world, you’re collecting data. Don’t ever go on an audition to get the job, go on the audition to find out how you best do auditions.

If you go into something expecting to be rubbish and expecting everyone else to be equally bad, there is less space for your pride to be dented. In a group of people who are actively seeking not to succeed, humiliation becomes obsolete.

Your twenties is about finding your identity and finding out who you are. For me, I had no clue who I was really. I thought I did. I thought I knew everything about me, but I knew nothing

For all their shortcomings, school and university at least have structure, timetables and exam results to tell us how we’re doing. Adult life is bafflingly free of these signposts. There is no test you can sit to reveal whether you’re an A-grade grown-up, there is only what other people seem to be doing – and in the Instagram age, they all seem to be doing far better than we are.

We exist separately from our negative thoughts, and we are in charge of interrogating their validity and of changing the way we speak to ourselves.
Instead of ‘Ali died’, ‘Ali lived’.
Instead of ‘this ended’, ‘it existed’.

That’s me telling my brain to take charge, so that if there is something we can do, we do it. If there isn’t, then don’t torture me, because there is no point torturing me if there is nothing I can do about it.