Member-only story
Why You Need To Become Best Friends With Failure
You are going to fail. A lot. Get used to it.
You are going to fail
“You are going to die.”
This is not another meditation on Memento Mori and the meaning of death. It’s actually a meaningful lesson I learned from a video game.
In the Dark Souls gaming franchise, you are frequently reminded that death is going to happen. In fact, you will die at some point. It’s a franchise renowned for it’s brutal difficulty and
Quickly. Gloriously. Or just pathetic, in nature. But one way or another, the game will get the better of you. This game gives out “Game Over” screens like a barbershop giving out haircuts.
More than that, it’s a training course in making peace with failure. No matter how difficult the game becomes, it is always fair. The enemies give you enough time to react, you were just too slow. You could have avoided the pitfall, but you weren’t paying attention. You could have survived that brutal attack, but you didn’t manage your inventory correctly. The more you play the game, the more you realize that failure is inevitable. By design, it forces you accept a grand truth of life and failure.