For the past three months, I've had the same problem at work that resurfaces at least twice a month. Some of which have been user errors on others’ ends, and some of which on my end. To tell you the honest truth, half of my job I’m typing things I don’t really understand and hoping some recipient knows what it really means. This is my life right now.

These continual errors have resulted in me doing hours of math. Math. Math. Simple math, yes, but math nonetheless. K, I’m a Comm major, which means I took one math class in college and got a C and was STOKED about it.

My boss told me that I need to manually produce some numbers, again, and before I could stop myself, my eyes weld with tears. It was embarrassing, because you know, I was tearing up, and also this kind of error is seriously not a big deal— for normal people. People who when they think of the worst thing in the world don’t typically think of their freshman algebra class. That was when I decided to write this blog post about failing.

Occasionally I think I’m nailing the life thing. Usually it’s after I make the tunnel all three laps on Koopa Troopa Beach. Because I don’t own Mario Kart, nor N64, and am actually not much of a gamer at all, this satisfaction rarely comes, and I have to settle for little victories, like remembering to floss once every other week.

Being a grownup is hard. Sixty percent of the time, I’m confused and asking people what 401k means. The other 40% of the time, I forget that being a grownup insinuates responsibility and am buying golden Oreos and sampling makeup at Sephora. Instead of, you know. Changing my car’s oil.

The first day of my job at Deseret Digital, I saw a clip on one of the TV’s of Rachel Ray. There was an 11-year-old boy on it who had written a cookbook. It was a best seller.

It should have been at that moment that I realized that I pretty much have nothing to say for myself. What the heck have I done? If I were to write a cookbook, it would look like this:

Table of contents:

Quesadilla

Cereals

And OK, just because I can’t write a cookbook doesn’t make me a failure, right? Of course.

And at the same time…

My boss is judging for a scholarship given at work and one of the girls welded a trailer. A 17-EARY-OLD GIRL WELDED A TRAILER. With blonde hair.  And a 4.0. And she looks normal and nice, and I bet we would be friends. Meanwhile, this would be an average journal entry for me at this point in time:

Dear Diary,

I made no friends today. I gave Chad half my cashew. Gunnar and I walked around IKEA for two hours and didn’t buy anything. We made big plans to binge watch “The Office,” but ended up falling asleep with our shoes on at the foot of the bed instead.

Love,

Sar

Just some IKEA trip when I couldn't find Gunnar for five minutes. Apparently duvet covers are the worst?

Now, before you think I hate myself, this is the conclusion I’ve come to:

It’s much easier to say, “Look what they’ve done. Look what they have,” than it is to be content in your current situation and not feel like you’ve done enough, worked enough or are enough. I could compare myself to a blonde anomaly, or I could find pure joy in walking around IKEA for two hours to only buy a cinnamon roll. Because quite honestly, I fall asleep very happy and wake up just as happy.

In a world of comparisons, maybe we should make the choice to be content with our failures. Because when did dwelling get anyone anywhere?

To those of you who feel like a failure, and often: ME TOO.  But let’s fail together, yeah? I mean we’ve made it this long without falling off a cliff.

That’s all.