Have you ever felt that sinking feeling in your stomach when you know you are destined for failure? That feeling that consumes every inch of your being and makes you feel that that is all you are in that moment: a failure.

You come home on that evening and collapse into a puddle of negative thoughts and worry of what is to come, that if you do not deal with whatever it is that made you feel this way you will evaporate from your puddle state into nothing and never see the light of tomorrow.

Your mind consumes you. You try to rationalize your earlier performance but can’t. The fact that you have failed refuses to evacuate your thoughts. You decide to work, to work until you make yourself understand where you failed.

You work until your mind is numb and flooding with information that you believe will re-solidify you from your sulking puddle of a mindset, but will in fact null it from understanding what it wants.

And when you have finished, you sleep for the little time you have left in this day. When you awaken, you sulk out of bed and try again.

But this time, it’s different, you think.

It is different because you succeeded this time around. You achieved your goal, yes, but at what cost?

You go home again that evening and repeat your cycle.

Mind-numbing work, restless sleep, aching awakening, success. Rinse and repeat.

Until the end of time.

You forget what it means to love what you do after a while, because if you do not succeed, then you fail. And if you fail then you will not go anywhere. And if you do not go anywhere, then you cannot do what you love.

You forget that to love something means to fail time and time again; it means to step away from your determination for success.

And to love something is to never have to “work” at whatever it is you do for a single day in your life.

To fail is to make progress, to achieve eventual enlightenment. To fail is a part of life.

To stress and to strain over the things you love, or to become overly committed to responsibilities that don’t involve your passion is an act of inflicting pain only on yourself.

It is to remain as a puddle, a lifeless and lack-luster being with the tragic inability to feel.

So work, work until your goals have been met, but do not let your mind shut out what matters; what keeps you human,

What lets you live.