Failure is universal. It’s never fun, but we’ll all confront it at some point, be it through bad luck, bad behavior, or just sucking at something. Why are we so bad at talking about it, and why are we so afraid of it? The stories of Failure Week are here to help remind us that the world doesn't end when something goes horribly wrong, and that we can learn as much from life's disasters as its successes.
I remember reading an article in a women’s magazine about jealousy when I was a teenager. Back then, my friends seemed wittier, sexier, and so much less awkward around boys than I was. The article made an impression because it framed jealousy constructively, as a sign of dissatisfaction. It advised actually using the emotion to propel yourself toward your goals: Don’t just sit there! If you want something, go get it for yourself!
This advice has been lodged in my mind for 15 years, but I’ve never been quite able to follow it—especially when it came to one former classmate. She’s smart, hard-working, and beautiful (of course). She’s already accomplished some great things. And I have spent one-third of my life in a one-sided competition with her.
We met in college, where we studied in the same programs, led clubs on campus, and wrote for the school newspaper. We were friendly acquaintances, and even at an elite school, there seemed room enough for everyone. Then, during the summer before our senior year, we both applied for the exact same job on the newspaper staff. The editor-in-chief hired her.
Big deal, right? I’ve applied for heaps of jobs and not gotten them. But as a 20-year-old, not getting that job was my life’s biggest disappointment. I wasn’t used to losing. I was more than crushed—I thought she was just better than me.
Still, I couldn’t say I didn’t like her—we shared so many interests. We should be friends, right?! I had hope for mutually supportive, parallel careers. And after college, we did occasionally hang out and invite each other to parties. I even brought her on at a publication where I edited because her writing was—and still is—so great.
Then came the time I saw a bunch of fellow writers posting on social media about what a great time they’d had at a party this woman hosted…that I wasn’t invited to. It may have been an innocent oversight. Or maybe an invite accidentally went to my spam folder. But I felt intentionally excluded. It wasn’t just the college paper anymore; now it felt like being expelled from our group of peers.
Still, I dug in my heels with my career. I blogged daily about feminist issues and wrote personal essays about coming to terms with my sexuality or growing up in a family touched by addiction. But instead of mutually supportive, parallel careers, whenever her blog wrote about my blog—or more specifically about me—it was negative. Mean, even. There was name-calling and an undertone of sneering superiority. I felt even more misunderstood than I already did about the sexuality and addiction stuff. The personal and professional became hopelessly entangled, and it hurt.
If I could go back to that time, I’d tell myself to get a grip. I should have just emailed her and sorted it out over a glass of wine like an adult. But as I was growing increasingly intimidated by her, I didn’t do that. Instead, I started down the path of nonconfrontational, festering jealousy. Some of this came from occupying a similar space on the Internet. There’s a panic that still exists among women, even feminist women, that there isn’t “enough” to go around. Only one columnist on the paper. One speaker on the panel. One expert in the documentary. So, even within “the sisterhood,” we sharpen our elbows to be that one. In that regard, she truly had the competitive advantage. I may be as ambitious as she is, but I’ll never be as aggressive. For years, I resented her for that edge while measuring myself against her successes.
Today I know I wasn’t the victim I thought myself to be at the time. I allowed my fear of failure to hold me back. I ascribed sinister intentions to her when in reality, I had no idea what was going on in her life or what she was thinking. All I knew was that I wanted to avoid not just her, but arenas in which she competed—to protect myself, or so I thought. And choosing not to do something only has one outcome, no matter the reason for it.
I skipped parties and conferences out of fear of cutting remarks like the ones she made online. But by avoiding her, I closed myself off from networking opportunities and relationships with potential mentors. It kept me safe from a possible confrontation, but it also locked me out of chances to build my own career. Failing to be as successful as she was became a self-fulfilling prophecy. For years, I wouldn’t apply to jobs at the company where she worked. I just assumed—without any actual evidence—that she’d have something negative to say about my application. Looking back, I’m appalled by my lack of confidence in my work.
But none of it, not staying home, not unfollowing her on social media, not avoiding online groups, made me feel better. She always seemed a level or two ahead of me. No matter what I accomplished—a book review in the New York Times, interviews on TV—I felt like a failure in comparison.
If all this sounds exhausting, it was. It ate up most of my 20s. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t let my feelings go earlier. We both dealt with some terrible situations as bloggers, and many times I needed someone who understood what that was like. Maybe if I had offered an olive branch, I would have learned that things didn’t come to her as easily as it appeared.
By some standards, she’s more “successful” than me—she’s achieved a host of things I once thought I wanted—and that may always dog me in some small way. But I’ve come to accept that while our paths have overlapped, we’re going in different directions. I’ve published articles in most of my dream publications. I’ve traveled places I never imagined going, like Costa Rica and Australia. I’m married to a great guy who makes life feel like an adventure. My goals have changed and adapted to the career and life I actually have, not the career and life she has.
These days, I have thicker skin and more confidence in myself. But more importantly, I’m happy to be a work in progress. I know that I need to be braver, bolder and less easily intimidated. It helps no one—not me, not other women—to fear failure so intensely that we don’t take risks. Experiencing rejection and humiliation didn’t kill me. In fact, it was all the effort I put into avoiding those feelings that really messed me up in my twenties. That was the real failure. I don’t want fear of measuring up to her, or anyone, to eat up my thirties, too.
