Failure shouldn’t stop you from giving it your all

“Oh, I’m sorry that it didn’t work out, but it doesn’t really matter, you’re only a kid. You’ve got time to make changes later.” A sentiment I, and I’m sure many of you, have heard often when a project doesn’t work or an idea doesn’t pan out. A dismissal of failure by saying the project itself never mattered. I am sick and tired of hearing it.

Yes, in the grand scheme of things, none of the projects I have worked on, the events I have attended nor the positions I have strived for matter. I am young; I have not been around long.

But in the grand scheme of things, we are all—our entire species—barely a blip on the cosmological clock. If you follow this logic, there are only two options. Either nothing we do ever starts to matter, or the things we do matter because we give them meaning. We dedicate our time and effort because, even if we fail, at least we gave it that good old college try. And we really do need to try.

Apathy is a luxury that we gave up when we formed a democracy. A government by the people, for the people requires actual buy in from the people. If there is no willingness to engage then the community becomes stagnant, unchanging. We don’t need to agree on what, when or how, but for God’s sake people, get up and care about something! Go to protests and events, talk to people you disagree with, say your piece. It doesn’t matter what: just find something you care about.

There are dozens of events every week about any issue or movement you could possibly want—go to any of them! There are hundreds of clubs trying to make a difference, join any of them! It’s disheartening to see the work that goes into creating new opportunities for growth and change for there to be almost no engagement with it. It’s not cool to not care. It just leads to missed experiences and wasted opportunities.

The things we do matter. They matter because we decide they matter. If we go through life not trying, not throwing ourselves at problems, not getting ourselves out there because we don’t care or we might fail, we’ll never do anything. We’ll scroll our lives away because if nothing matters then we might as well. But I think that’s a miserable way to live.

On my deathbed, I won’t look back and remember the times I didn’t try to do something, the opportunities I didn’t take, the issues I decided not to care about. I will remember when I threw myself into a problem, body and soul. The times when I stood up and did whatever I could just because I could. I have failed. I will continue to fail. But let it never be said of me that I didn’t try or that I didn’t care. I hope for that same thing for every person reading. I think that it may be the greatest sin of a human being, to not care enough to be a part of your community, to not try to make the world a better place even when you’re given the opportunity to do so.

The world is run by those who show up. By those who wake up and decide they’re going to try even if failure might seem inevitable. In the words of Teddy Roosevelt, shared with me by one of the most memorable people I have ever met, “the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.