So apparently I'm a failure????

Your friend is rude....it sounds like more of an accomplishment to me! :drinker:

I say I am not a failure because I DOUBLED my previous longest bike... I didn't once say "I can't do this it's too hard lets go home I'm finished" (although he claims my cutting it short was saying that)... I say I'm not a failure because I don't know many people who can do 140 miles let alone people my age and weight (I'm still 270#)...


So am I a failure? Is this a guy thing I don't understand? My friend has this thing about "completing" things that feels almost neurotic to me...

You have already answered your own question when you said "I say I am not ... "

You set a new Personal Best. That is the ONLY yardstick that counts. (HIS definition of success as stricktly "pass/fail" is irrelevant, because it is HIS, not YOURS)

Get another friend. That one is bogus.

ETA: All accomplishments are successes. You fail when you don't try.

THIS

We set out this last week to do the greenbrier river trail... About 160 miles in five days... Myself and the kids and two friends...

We didn't make it... Decided to stop ten miles from the end (saving us twenty miles round trip) and did 140... Slept out four nights... Rain one of them forcing us to seek shelter in a gazebo instead of sleeping in our hammocks (pain in the back as it were) butt blister (almost made me stop and hitchhike back to the car at mile forty...)

I decided to cut it short mainly because I have to work tomorrow and I don't want to be dead... I'm already very sore... I'm not sure how the extra twenty miles would have done me...

So my friend says we failed because we didn't "finish" what we set out to do... We didn't finish the trail and I have never seen the last ten miles of it... (we have section biked it before)

I say I am not a failure because I DOUBLED my previous longest bike... I didn't once say "I can't do this it's too hard lets go home I'm finished" (although he claims my cutting it short was saying that)... I say I'm not a failure because I don't know many people who can do 140 miles let alone people my age and weight (I'm still 270#)...


So am I a failure? Is this a guy thing I don't understand? My friend has this thing about "completing" things that feels almost neurotic to me...

You're not a failure, however for the particular goal you set to do you failed to achieve. And there's nothing wrong with that since every failure eventually comes with success. You would have been a failure if you didn't even attempt it.

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I agree with this!

not a failure in my eyes ha it would take me a yr to go 140 miles...lord have mercy your friend must of bumped his head..:noway:

I really love the amount of growth and reflection that this comment shows. I believe that we need to acknowledge failures (in the technical sense, as in not achieving a goal) in order to be able to overcome the obstacles and succeed in the first time. This has nothing to do with your worth as a person. I've seen this confused a lot and it is one of my pet peeves (obviously judging from my previous comment :-) ) . But it is the first thing you need to learn as an athlete in order to better your performances.

Exactly. I've been in a competitive sport for over 35 years, where failing to reach a goal has nothing to do with one's standard of excellence. In fact, only serious athletes tend to strive for reaching an ultimately high standard--but if they equated anything less than a gold medal (the obvious goal) with complete failure as a person, they'd never compete and never achieve. It's not a winning attitude, in life or sport.

I agree with Maverick above...this thread and the responses surprise me. Your friend is not "making you" feel like a failure, for stating an obvious truth, or even for his regretting that you both didn't finish. (The number of people here who think he can, or that he is being malicious is phenomenal.) You choose your responses to what people say. From what you said, your friend was expressing his feelings (of regret) for failing to meet the original goal you both shared. And you can express yours, too--possibly of regret that this time wasn't the time you made it all the way, but moreover that you are excited by how much you DID achieve given the considerable personal cost and effort.

Teresa of Avila used to say "comparison is odious." That is true. Hateful to yourself, most of all. Resist judging yourself by others' standards or externally imposed ones; resist measuring your accomplishments by anything other than your own personal efforts and progress towards your goals. You'll save yourself much unneeded misery, and your confidence and peace will rub off on those around you as well.

Your goal is not his goal. He has no business telling you that you failed. As I posted recently, a good response might have been, "Thanks; yours is the opinion I count on most." You took an amazing trip, collecting adventures and memories, having fun. You are awesome.