anything goes with emma chamberlain - failure (part 1: failing as a human being)

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

hi. for the next two episodes i'm going to be doing a little two part series about failure. i wanted to do this because i think it's really easy to forget that failing in anything in life doesn't define you. it doesn't make you a permanently evil person, it doesn't make you a permanent loser or a permanent idiot. failing actually has a crucial role in becoming a better you in all areas of life. i think a lot of us know that, but it's easy to forget. so today i want to remind you, and talk about failing as a human being...about personal failure to yourself and others. we'll go over types of personal failure, the lessons we learn from failure, how to handle it and move on from it, failure in relationships and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, for the next two episodes I'm going to be doing a little two-part series about failure. And I really wanted to do this because I think it's really easy to forget that failing in anything in life doesn't define you. It doesn't make you a permanently evil person. It doesn't make you a permanent loser. It doesn't make you a permanent asshole. It doesn't make you a permanent idiot. Failing is a part of being human.

It's crucial for learning and growing and developing into a better person and into the best person that you can be. Failing is such a crucial role in becoming a better you in all areas of life. And I think we tend to forget that and feel like we don't ever have room to fail. We can never fail because if we do, then we're just pieces of shit. But that's not the case. And I think a lot of us know that.

But I think it's easy to forget. I find myself forgetting this all the time. When I have a small failure in my day-to-day life, I find myself in a really bad spot mentally, because I take it personally, and I look at myself different. I look at myself like a loser. But then I have to remind myself, I'm at this little failure today. Taw you something. And that's a beautiful thing.

So anyway, in today's episode, we're talking about failing as a human being. Maybe that's in social interactions. Maybe that's in relationships or friendships. Just failing as a human being on a personal level with other people or even inward to yourself. Just failing. In the next episode, we're gonna be talking about failing in your endeavors, whether that's creative, work, school, just stuff that's outside of yourself. But let's stay on theme and on topic today.

We're talking about us. I think in the age of the internet, Emma's favorite thing to talk about, the age of the internet, I know, I know, it's like Emma stopped talking about the fucking internet. I can't because I'm fascinated by it and the way that it affects all of our psyches. So I have to keep talking about it. I am sorry.

Anyway, in the age of the internet, I'm gonna be brutally honest here and say that the internet celebrates failure. The internet is excited to see people fail. Is the internet also excited to see people succeeding and people living their best life? Sometimes yes. But unfortunately, what gets the most views, what is the most exciting to watch is failure. People weirdly enjoy to watch other people fail.

And I think the reason for that is, is that it's comforting. It's really comforting. Seeing other people fail reminds you that you're not so bad. It's almost a little ego boost. But it's also just simply fascinating. It's fascinating. I don't know if there's any deeper reason for why it's fascinating, but it just simply is.

So it's safe to say that failures blow up on the internet. I mean, if you're scrolling through TikTok and you see a video of a mom somewhere like screaming at somebody and being a complete asshole, maybe it's to the cashier at the grocery store, maybe it's to the gas station clerk, whatever it may be. If you're on TikTok scrolling and you see some mom being a total bitch to somebody, you are going to watch that because it's entertaining, it's interesting, it's fascinating. Now, in my opinion, any time that anybody raises their voice at a stranger, most of the time, that's kind of a human failure

I do my absolute best to never raise my voice. Well, I stand up for myself. Will I Put my foot down? Yes, but will I do it in a polite and reasonable tone? Also yes or at least I try to Because I feel like that's the best way to do that. That's the best way to I feel like that's the best way to do that. That's the best way to handle a disagreement. I think raising your voice takes it to a level that it doesn't need to go to solve the problem, which is why I think, in a way,

that's a small human failure, you know? So anyway, you see that video of that mom yelling at somebody in public. That's a failure. It's interesting to watch. We're all watching it. Maybe you go and you comment down below, wow, what a bitch.

And then you move on, you keep scrolling on TikTok. That's a great example of how failing just thrives on the internet. Now, in some ways, I think that the power of failure on the internet algorithm is not a terrible thing because I think it can sometimes put someone in their place a lot of times somebody being an asshole in person won't get confronted as

strongly as they will on the internet and I think that in some cases as they will on the internet. And I think that in some cases, someone failing it being broadcasted onto the internet and then people commenting on it and giving their opinion can be kind of useful because it can teach somebody something about how they can be a better person. And it can share perspectives that this person

may have never had access to prior. I think that that's really powerful. But I think the issue is how widespread it is. I mean, anybody can comment on a video posted on the internet. Anybody can share that video. Anybody can say something completely just out of pocket and even more mean than is necessary for the situation at hand.

I mean, it's like there's no boundaries, right? Anything can happen. Anything can be said. The person can be harassed in their personal life if a video of them failing in some way goes viral. I mean, there's some pros and cons to it. It's not an obviously good or obviously bad thing. But I think that the popularity of sharing people's failures on the internet has created a sort of fear in a lot of us. And this sort of feeling that we have no room to fail

because if we do, it could be broadcasted to the internet. And who knows what could happen from there? I mean, I feel this on a slightly different scale because I'm on the internet as my job, although I hate calling it a job, it doesn't even feel like a job to me because I enjoy doing it, but you know what I'm on the internet as my job. Although I hate calling it a job, it doesn't even feel like a job to me. Cause I enjoy doing it, but you know what I'm saying? It's like technically being on the internet

in one way or another is my job, right? So of course I'm living in this constant fear that I'm gonna fail in some way. And it's gonna be broadcasted to the internet. And in fact, I have failed on the internet as a human being. Of course I have. There's not one person on this planet who hasn't. And even if my failures were small, maybe they were accidents, it's happened. And for me personally, I did learn from it. I learned a lot of things from it. I've learned a lot of things from being on the internet.

And for me, it's been positive for the most part. I mean, it's been difficult at times because with all commentary and criticism, there's going to be some death threats. There's going to be some completely irrational statements about my character as a whole. There's going to be things like that. Of course, and those are hard to look at, and they hurt really bad. But people who are constructive and are like, Hey, you fucked up a little bit, but it's okay because

that doesn't mean you're necessarily an evil person. That's the sweet spot. But also for me, I expect it, and I anticipate it, it's a part of being on the internet because I put so much of myself out there into the world that it's almost impossible for me to not fail every once in a while. I think if you are putting your life out on the internet at all times,

you have to expect that people are watching what you're doing. And so if you fuck up in some way, you're going to get called out because they see you. They see all parts of you because you're putting it all out there. And so there's a much higher chance that someone's gonna watch you fail in some way. And it's scary, but it's a part of sharing your life on the internet, and that's something I'm aware of. Whereas, I think a lot of people who don't share their lives on the internet are still frightened

of their failures being broadcasted to the world because now it's just something that goes viral. So no one's safe. Like for me, at least I kind of mentally prep myself on a daily basis, like listen Emma, if you slip in some way and you make a mistake, you're not, you're being an asshole one day, you know, you say something, you have an opinion that maybe it's immature or hasn't been fully developed yet, maybe whatever it may be. Or you don't realize the gravity of it.

Like whatever it may be, I know that there's a chance that I might get corrected in some way every day, I expect it. And I'm open to it because I've accepted that that's a part of being on the internet. Whereas if you're not someone who shares their life on the internet and you're just kind of logged out of the matrix of the internet, you're still not safe. You're still frightened that maybe you're at a party and someone films you puking on someone's front lawn because you're so drunk whatever or maybe you're in high school and you're at a party and you're scared that you know somebody's gonna film you drinking at the party because you can

get in really big trouble for that. Or maybe you're scared because when you were in middle school you were a complete asshole and you used to just like be an asshole because you didn't know any better because you were like an 11 year old You know like maybe when you were in high school You cheated on your boyfriend like whatever it may be right all those normal failures There's now an added risk of everybody on this planet knowing about it if Somebody decides to tell their story online and it goes viral or somebody has a video of you doing something and they decided to post it. It's a free for all.

And that makes us feel like we cannot make one mistake because if we do, it could be the end of our reputation as a whole, right? I mean, some people who go viral for being an asshole, for example, that is the impression that they have on the world forever, because they're not posting anything else to the internet. So like, that's the only piece of that person that we as a whole have of that person forever.

That's our impression of that one person forever. See, that's a scary thing. The truth is though, as scary as the world feels with everything being able to be documented and posted and discussed and even sometimes people can lie about your character or whatever it may be. Through all of that, we still do have room to fail. And we must give ourselves that room to fail.

We can't listen to the voice in our head, telling us that we have to be perfect now, and we always had to be perfect in the past. Without failing as a human being, you cannot learn. I'll give you an example. When I was younger, I, like, young, I'm talking about like 10 or 11, 12 years old. I started hanging out with some of my friends

and some of their older siblings and I really wanted to be cool. I really wanted to fit in. And so my friends' older siblings, they would be talking in ways that were cool to me because I was like, whoa, they're using words I've never heard before, they're like, they have so much swag, they're just like, whoa, they're using words I've never heard before. They're like, they have so much swag.

They're just like so chill and like whatever. And so I started picking up their lingo. You know what I mean? I was like, well, they're fucking cool. So I'm going to say what they're saying. Bad words, just rude things like whatever. Not as much rude things, more just like bad words and sort of slang terminology, whatever maybe, right?

And I remember, I didn't know that there was anything wrong with it. So like, I would say this shit in front of my parents. And I remember every once in a while, I would pick up a term or something from these kids. And I would say in front of my parents, just completely aloof to what they meant, or if they meant nothing, or whatever. And sometimes my parents would be like, Emma, no, like Emma, no, not that one.

You're not gonna say that. And I'd be like, why? And then they would explain to me. And then I would be like, oh, fuck. And I would feel so terrible. And I'd feel so embarrassed, because I'd realize, oh wait, that's not a nice word. Like that's really not a nice word.

I didn't know. But then I would learn from it and the feeling that I felt by fucking up and by saying that word out loud, by saying words out loud, right? That were wrong, okay? By saying those out loud and then getting a talking to by my parents, I learned that lesson

in a way that was so powerful because I was so mortified, I was so embarrassed and I learned that words have gravity at a really young age because my parents, the reaction that they would give me when I would say these words that were new to me, and then the way that they reacted, it was like, oh my God, I realize how serious this is, and I don't think I would have learned

until much later in my life, how serious, say certain bad words are, unless I would have literally said it in front of my parents and they would have then given me that talk, the way that that failure was so important for me. I learned so much from that failure. And something a little bit lighter that's a good example, a little bit less serious, is like, for example, one time I want an award. I've talked about the story many times,

but a few years back, I won an award at an award show. Okay, and I didn't know I was going to win. And so I didn't prepare a speech, and I went up on stage, and I gave the most cringy fucking speech. Cringy speech, possibly of all time. You could tell I was about to shit my pants. I was so scared. I wanted to start crying. I didn't want to give a speech. I didn't know what to say.

I was unprepared. It was a mess. And to the state, I still get made fun of for it. That was a failure in my opinion. Okay. That was an embarrassing failure on a social level because socially, I didn't know how to carry myself in that situation and therefore I failed. Now, obviously this is less serious.

You know, nobody got hurt from that but me. But let me tell you, it did hurt me. Okay, you know, having people making fun of me, non-stop, hurt, but I did learn a lot from it. I learned that I need to prepare for these types of events. I also need to know my comfort level, like I don't really feel super comfortable public speaking, I just don't. It's not my favorite thing to do.

So maybe I just avoid those situations moving forward. I just don't go. I don't show up. Period. End of story. Just don't go. You know, I learned a lot from that. And it was painful, but it was still valuable. The moral of those two stories is that those two fuck-ups in my life were so painful for me because for both situations there was this extreme level of embarrassment and shame but that uncomfortable feeling of shame and embarrassment and sadness even

forced me to never make those mistakes again. And in the first example, that made me a better person. And in the second example, it protected me from becoming painfully embarrassed in the future. I think that failing as a human being is so important as long as you take the time to learn from it and you let it humble you and you let it teach you something. If failing does that, then it's a really, really good thing. I would say the main ways that we can fail as a human being is number one being an asshole. Obviously.

Number two, taking advantage of people. Number three, lying in a way that's not like a white lie or like a lie that is protecting somebody from the fact that they're having a surprise party for the, you know what I mean? Like, lying, lying. Okay, we're just gonna say lying. But you know that sometimes lying is necessary and it's like, oh, come, come to dinner with me tonight, clear out your schedule and then you throw somebody's surprise birthday party. Like that's lying, that's good. You get what I'm saying.

Sabotaging somebody so that you can get ahead and being immoral in some way to fit in with others, saying things that are mean and hurtful because they allow you to fit into a group, like lighting an ant on fire or something because your friends think it's funny, like doing things that are not an ant, but like, you know, like lighting a worm on fire

or caterpillar on fire that you find outside, lighting an on fire to fit in with your friends. Like being a asshole, like knocking on your neighbor's door, like every 20 minutes, just to piss them off. Like being an asshole to fit in with your friends, that's another way that you can kind of fail as a human being. And obviously with all of the things I just listed, all these things are not good. We should avoid doing them at all costs, right? But as humans, we've all fucked up a few times, like everybody. It's impossible to never experience one of these things. Of course, most of us have been an asshole before.

Most of us have taken advantage of somebody before in the sense of like maybe taking advantage of somebody's kindness or generosity, taking advantage of somebody's honesty with you, whatever it may be. We've all taken advantage of somebody, and so I used to take advantage of my parents in a way that was, you know, makes me just cringe now, because they were, they took such amazing care of me, and I took it all for granted.

I feel so much guilt about that. Even though and I took it all for granted. I feel so much guilt about that. Even though now I'm so grateful for my parents. When I was younger, I wasn't. I was like, yeah, bring me a water. Yeah, do my laundry. Yeah, cook my dinner. Like I didn't care.

I didn't even realize. Now I'm older and I'm like, oh my god, I'm so grateful for that. But in the moment, I totally took advantage of it. I've lied before. I can't remember something I've lied about because I really avoid lying at all costs. It's one of my biggest life rules is just don't lie.

But I have lied before, probably. I've probably sabotaged somebody in some way I Don't know though. I don't remember doing that, but I probably have and I've definitely been immoral to fit in with others. I've definitely You know a good example was the first story I told Although I guess that wasn't immoral because I didn't know it wasn't a reflection of my moral compass because I didn't immoral because I didn't know, it wasn't a reflection of my moral compass because I didn't really know what I was saying

or talking about or whatever. It was an accident, but still, I guess it would in some ways be considered immoral because even though, because I should have asked. Yeah, being immoral to fit in, I've definitely done that. We've all definitely done that. I think that when it comes to moving forward in the future, if you make a mistake, if you

fail as a human being, as long as you make a promise to yourself to never do it again, and you feel that guilt and sadness and shame. And then make a promise that you're never gonna do it again. I think that that is really positive. And I think that from there you can move forward and be a better you. And I think that that's magical, truly. Now, I struggle with something,

which is I feel guilt and shame and embarrassment about all of my failures as a human being. Even though I'm never going to do them again, like every time I fail, I'm hard on myself and I say, Emma, you can never fail like that again. Ever. And I don't. And I genuinely don't. I mean, I'm gonna fail again in my life.

Don't get me wrong. But failures that I've made throughout my life that have been like pivotal for me, I've not made those same mistakes again because I learned my lesson from those failures. And so there's no reason for me to be wallowing in that shame and guilt from those things that I have clearly learned from. There's no reason to live in that guilt,

but it's so hard sometimes not to. I'm personally learning how to release that guilt and be proud of myself for learning that lesson. I think that it all comes down to forgiveness, forgiveness of yourself, forgiveness of others, forgiveness of everything, everyone, everywhere. You know what I mean? I think that something we're lacking right now is forgiveness, tying it back to the lady in the grocery store who was being a complete bitch to the cashier at the front desk and it went viral

and take talk. Okay. You don't know what she's going through. You don't know why she behaved like that. What if her husband died that morning? I know that that's like brutal, but we don't know. We must always keep in mind that we're all human and we all lose our marbles sometimes. We all go in the wrong direction sometimes.

We all do the wrong thing sometimes. We all do it. All of us. Nobody is an exception. And if we can learn to forgive ourselves and forgive others, when they're able to learn from their mistakes, there would just be so much more peace on this earth, I swear. Obviously, on a small scale, but still in a powerful way, you know, if we all gave everybody a chance to learn from their mistakes and to be corrected when they need to be corrected and to be put in their place, when they need to be put in their place, if we gave ourselves, in others, the room,

to be better, I think that we would have a better environment not only on the internet, but also in person too, because this is not just about the internet. This is also about in-person. That's kind of my two cents on personal failure. But another thing I want to talk about that is kind of an extension of failing as a human, right? Is in relationships. I think a lot of people look at a failed relationship as a relationship that didn't last, you know?

There was an end to it. Many people look at breakups, friend breakups, breakups in any way as a failure. I know I used to. In my, oh my God. My first relationship was so heartbreaking for me mainly because I felt like I failed. I felt like I failed as a girlfriend because it ended. Now that was irrational, okay, and not true at all. Because now that I've had years of distance on it,

I'm like, ooh, that is not true. Emma, you are not failing. You did great. You did a great job. You were not the, yeah, it was fine. But in the moment, I felt this shame in guilt about my relationship not working out, because even though I did my best

to be the best girlfriend I could be, it didn't last and it failed, and I was so embarrassed. Now, because I have some years under my belt and that relationship is far in my past, I can look at it now and say, that was such a valuable failure. That relationship, eating shit at the end was so valuable.

I learned so much from that. I learned what I need in a boyfriend moving forward, because I wasn't necessarily like I wasn't necessarily getting that you know I learned what kind of girlfriend I want to be I Learned how I do and don't want to be treated like I learned so much about what to look for in a relationship and how I Want to be in a relationship from that failed relationship. And it's a beautiful thing.

Same thing with friendships. Every friendship that's gone out the window has taught me something new about who I want to be friends with, who I get along with best, who I click with best. At the end of a friendship, at the end of a romantic relationship, you can find yourself feeling like a failure because you couldn't keep it going. You couldn't make it last. But the truth is that all relationships are not permanent. Like nobody is friends with the same people their whole life

and has the same significant other for their whole life. I mean, it happens, it's rare, but almost nobody has that. There's ebbs and flows throughout your life where you're gonna have a lot of friends and then you might have no friends and then you might make new friends and then you might become friends again

with your old friends. And it's like, it's all over the map. It's so normal for a relationship to fail. And every single time a relationship fails, you learn more about yourself and what you need in relationships moving forward. So that you can find someone out there

that might be in your life for the rest of your life, whether that's a friend or a significant other. And maybe you fucked up really bad in a relationship or a friendship. Maybe you threw your friend under the bus or you cheated on your significant other and you did mess it up. You actually on a personal level failed. Not like, oh, the relationship itself failed, but you failed and you did something wrong. Let's say that's the case. If you feel awful and you feel terrible and you never

do it again, you still deserve forgiveness from yourself. If you learn from it, you still deserve forgiveness. Can you expect the other person in the relationship to forgive you? No. You can hope that they do, but you can't expect it because you hurt them. You burn them, right? But if you can learn from that mistake, then eventually you should forgive yourself. The funny thing is, is that on the reverse of those situations, the people who were cheated on or were sabotaged or thrown

under the bus, they probably still feel like they failed in some way to be cheated on or to be sabotaged or thrown under the bus. That's the interesting part about it is that when a relationship ends, no matter who's in the wrong and who's in the right and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, everybody feels like they failed in some way, the truth is that, sure, maybe there were some failures, but that's not a bad thing necessarily. I don't know. I think that it's so important in our lives to have people around us who can tell us when we fail and can help us become better from it.

I think it's so important to have people in your life, whether it's on the internet or whether it's in person or whatever, maybe I think it's so important to have people in our lives who can tell us, hey, that was wrong, here's why, and here's how you can do better next time, because that's how we all learn and grow. That's a beautiful thing. I think when it becomes a negative thing

and when failing becomes a negative thing and when failing becomes a negative thing is when we feel guilt about it for too long. We keep the guilt going even once we've learned from it and we've never done it again and we've proved that. We still feel guilty. Also when it gets blown out of proportion, in some way, and there's no room for forgiveness. The one thing I didn't touch on today is people out there that continue to make the same mistakes and continue to fail in the same ways over and over again as human beings. Because today's episode was mainly dedicated

to those who wanna learn and wanna be better and want to learn from their failures, you know what I mean? And there are people out there that don't, that simply don't. And at the end of the day, what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? We're all doing our best. If there's someone out there who isn't,

and who's making an active choice to continue to be an asshole because they enjoy it for some reason, or they want to hurt others, you know, and say things that are mean and offensive, whatever. At that point, with those people, I think it's just best to keep your distance from people like that. Unfollow them, stop being friends with them in your personal life. And that's it. You know, if they can't learn from their from their fuck ups and they're not actively trying to be a better them, then that's not something you want around. Anyway, that's all I have for today. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Part two is coming next week about failing in your endeavors in life. I'm really excited about it. So tune in next week.

If you want, let me know what you think of this episode. You can tweet me at AG podcast or send me a DM on Instagram and anything goes. And you can follow me there if you'd like or you can subscribe to anything goes on any platform, you stream podcasts. And I just appreciate you hanging out and tuning in. And as always, my podcast episodes are always an open conversation. And I really truly do love to hear your perspective. Do you think, do you agree with me?

Do you disagree with me? Like all of it, I love to be open. And I think that that is something, you know, we need more of because I just talk and not everything I'm saying is perfectly fleshed out and you know, whatever. So I like in open conversation whatever whatever I'll talk to you next week. Love you.