Rebuilding From The Rubble - A Short Story About Success & Failure

As all good stories go there’s usually a time where everything is perfect, pristine and ideal. Or at the very least on the path to achieve that life. Then suddenly, most often times going undetected, things change. The progression slows and stagnates.

Now, this is where people either buckle down, lock in and get back on track. Only sometimes they’re unable to. Unable to find that motivation that got them to where they were in the first place. Unable to find the energy, the drive or determination to keep climbing.

Maybe they’re worn out. Drained, distracted or just flat out over pursuing a life that demands so much. Whatever the reason, they stall. They slide back. They slip into old habits, or convince themselves they need a break or that it’s ok to slow down.

Eventually this slip starts to feel like a slide, then a fall. One day they wake up and realize they’ve fallen so far that they have no clue how they even got so high up in the first place.

One day they find motivation, they hype themselves up and start to climb again. Pouring all their effort and insight into every step. Plowing through faster than they did before and so much more efficiently. They make so much progress in such a short amount of time that they hurl past their initial slipping point and find themselves overlooking all that they’ve accomplished.

They feel proud, elated and confident. So much so because this climb, this one was all them. They did it without any help and with no one showing them the way. They achieved something in such a short period of time because all the sacrifice they put into their initial climb that they made it easier to re climb to the top the second go round.

Overtime these people gain so much confidence within themselves that they feel unstoppable. They begin seeing their life as limitless. They have so much faith within themselves that their ability to obtain whatever it is they put their mind to almost always occurs and if it doesn’t it’s only because they lost interest, not because they failed.

Their success is intoxicating. It’s magnetic and draws the attention of others that want what they have. Soon they are surrounded by onlookers, met with opportunities and overwhelmed with success.

Things continue on this way until they take a look at other parts of their life and notice where they are lacking. They become discontent with what they have achieved and start to then focus on what is still left to achieve. They pour the same effort and energy into their weaknesses as they did their strengths.

The only difference is that the foundation of their weaknesses haven’t been tested as much as other parts of their life. It’s soft, brittle and unfamiliar. It’s like the feel they are walking on a floor built of soggy cardboard that’s propped up by sticks.

The sheer weight of their confidence breaks their weakness. It collapses in on itself and they find themselves falling again. Only this time it’s a fall like they’ve never felt before. One so fast that it knocks the wind out of them. They feel like they’re wrapped in a net, sinking into the water, fighting to get to the surface only the surface gets further and further away.

They throw everything they have at getting back to the surface. In a panic they can’t find any sense of when the fall will end and they begin making desperate attempts just to get some sense of stability. Everything they grasp at breaks, it crumbles beneath their grip. They fall further and further until they find themselves so deep within a hole that the floor they fell through look like a speck in the sky.

They’re so deep in a hole, a pit, surrounded by darkness. It’s unfamiliar, terrifying and overwhelming.

Every attempt they make t get out of the pit only beats them down mentally until they feel any attempts are hopeless. Soon they stop trying. Shortly after they stop caring.

Finally they start convincing themselves that they belong here. That this is where they were meant to be all along. That this is their new life, their new world.

One of failure, one of despair. One of disappointment.