Screwing Up

What's your one biggest fear? Mine is death. Oh, and spiders....because they remind me of death. If you want to be my boyfriend then you need to be able to deal with spiders in a way that doesn't involve having an arachnid corpse splattered against the wall. Or perhaps radiate a chemical that naturally repels them. Or just be really good with a hoover.

The thing is that we all claim to have at least one phobia. It's either something irrational like spiders, wasps, rats, Robbie Williams, or it's something rational like drowning, burning, heights, Niki Minaj, etc.

But we all secretly have one additional, crippling phobia: the fear of screwing up. And we're all dirty, dirty liars who must open up about these things more often lest this become a habit. There is not one person on this planet who doesn't fear screwing up. And, granted, a society consisting of nothing but screw-ups wouldn't be a healthy one...but we do screw up, and we scew up all the time.

When was the last time you screwed something up? I've stopped having cereal for breakfast because I can never quite get the ratio of cereal and milk the exact way I want it - so I've given up. I don't want my first activity of the day to be a screw up. I might as well fall out of bed every morning.

If Darwin was right, then our existence is an accident. There are millions upon millions of other planets out there, yet as far as we know we're the only one with life - and this is entirely by accident. We're by all accounts a miracle, and we're also the ultimate screw up because clearly the universe isn't supposed to have life yet here we all are.

Can we for once celebrate screwing up? We already kind of do. You've probably heard of Scott of the Antarctic - the Englishman who became the second person to reach the south pole, being narrowly beaten by Roald Amundsen. After failing to be the first person to plant a flag on a bit of snow, Scott then proceeded to die of starvation on the return journey. He is recognised as a national hero despite failing in everything he set out to achieve. You probably didn't even know that Roald Amundsen was the first man to reach the south pole...and also the north pole.

So why is Scott more famous than Amundsen? Is it just because he's English?

I think it's because Scott threw his life into his quest and ultimately lost said life in the process. He is in many ways the ultimate screw-up, but he screwed up whilst trying to fulfil his greatest ambition. Yes, you can laugh and call him a failure - but he was just trying to live his dream. At least he'd got his stuff together and risked everything. Only by attempting can you actually fail.

It's possible everyone already knows this, but rather than using it to take something positive away from the experience people are just not bothering anymore. "It attempting leads to failiure then why attempt? Why not just do nothing and then I'll never screw up anything again!"

Just....no. Only through mistakes can you ultimately learn. Remember that time you stood on a LEGO brick? The reason why you don't walk around wearing shoes made of LEGO is because you know it hurts more than childbirth and thus you now make a conscious effort to avoid stepping on LEGO ever again.

The next time you screw up, rejoice! You've partaken in the natural circle of life. Human make mistake, human learn from mistake, human make another mistake. As long as you're not repeatedly hitting your head with a hammer then your mistakes can ultimately only make you wiser.