failure

People don’t fail. They give up.

I saw this the other day on some business’/fire station/church billboard and it has been stuck in my head ever since.

False dichotomy. I’ve been on a kick with this one lately, seeing it wherever I go. Hearing it in what we say…. It’s not healthy to spew such falsehoods.

Yeah, it’s a motivational phrase. But I also think it hurts. For the good? Maybe. But it’s also simply not true.

We both fail, yet refuse to give up and pick ourselves up. Refusing to admit that failure happens helps no one. It happens. We fold, we fall, we scrape our knees and bottom out.

Just this week, I’ve failed. Bottomed out. We lost our apartment and moved back into mom’s. Like it or not, it’s a failure. We had no money, medical bills were drowning us, holding on wasn’t an option.

But are we giving up? No. Did we fail? Yes.

What do you think? Do many motivational sayings follow this fallacy? Do they still have meaning or do they just plain sting?