Why You Cannot Fail

Charlottesville

September 17, 2026

I get an email twice a week from a fellow named Mark Manson. He’s a pop therapist whose claim to fame is a book he wrote entitled “Tge Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.” Sometimes his emails resonate with me. Today’s sure did:

If you decide you need $100,000 to be happy, $50,000 feels like a failure. If you decide $40,000 is enough to be happy, suddenly you’re a success.

Too often, we forget that failure is just this arbitrary definition we make up in our heads.

We decide, “This is what’s going to happen.”

And when it doesn’t, we declare it a failure.

Then we get pissed—completely forgetting we made the whole damn rulebook up on a whim.

Repeat after me: “My failures are self-invented.”

We do it with our jobs. We decide we need the corner office to be a success, then we get it, and feel like we need more. [LWF — “hedonic treadmill”]

We do it with our relationships. We decide we need to be dating a firefighting underwear model or a Victoria’s Secret angel with a PhD, then wonder why we’re lonely.

We conjure failure after failure—

Then punish ourselves for living inside them.

If you struggle with negative thinking, the most important thing to realize is this:

Nothing is ever as good in the real world as it is in your head.

Our minds exaggerate and amplify certain feelings or expectations.

It’s good to remember once in a while that you’re full of crap—

Just like everyone else.