I keep ending up in the same place.
Not physically — but mentally.
Every time I think I’ve figured something out,
every time I think this time it’s different,
I mess up again.
Same habits.
Same doubts.
Same disappointment.
And the worst part isn’t failing.
It’s realizing you’ve failed before.
Because at that point, it stops feeling like a mistake
and starts feeling like something’s wrong with you.
There’s a line from a Young the Giant song — Mind Over Matter —
that I haven’t been able to shake.
He says,
“I’m a young man built to fall.”
The first time I heard it, I thought it sounded confident.
Almost defiant.
But now it sounds… honest.
I think we grow up believing there’s a version of ourselves
we’re supposed to arrive at.
More disciplined.
More consistent.
More certain.
And once you reach that version,
you stop falling.
But that hasn’t been my experience.
Most of my frustration doesn’t come from failing once.
It comes from failing again.
From realizing I’m still struggling with things
I thought I outgrew.
From asking myself why I’m still here.
Why this keeps happening.
And eventually, that quiet question shows up:
What’s wrong with me?
Lately, I’ve been trying to answer that question differently.
Instead of assuming I’m broken,
I’ve been wondering if maybe this is just how I’m built.
Not built to get everything right the first time.
Not built to move in a straight line.
Not built to be perfectly composed.
Maybe I was built to fall.
When I look at old paintings, sculptures, or anatomy drawings,
what stands out to me isn’t perfection.
It’s exposure.
Uneven proportions.
Cracks in marble.
Edges worn down over time.
They weren’t trying to hide imperfection.
They were documenting it.
And somehow, that made the work feel more alive.
I think we’ve lost that permission.
Now every mistake feels like evidence.
Evidence that you’re behind.
That you’re undisciplined.
That you’re not who you said you were.
But falling doesn’t automatically mean you’re failing.
Sometimes it just means you’re learning something the slow way.
Being “built to fall” doesn’t mean staying down.
It means the falling was part of the structure.
It means some lessons don’t come from motivation or clarity.
They come from repetition.
From frustration.
From getting back up without knowing
if it’ll work this time either.
I think a lot of us are tired not because we’re failing,
but because we’re pretending we’re not allowed to.
Like there’s an age where uncertainty expires.
Like there’s a point where you’re supposed to have it figured out.
But when I’m honest with myself,
the moments that changed me the most
weren’t the moments where I succeeded.
They were the moments where I fell,
sat with it,
and kept going anyway.
So if you’re feeling stuck right now,
or disappointed in yourself,
or frustrated that you’re still dealing with the same things—
I don’t think that means you’re behind.
I don’t think it means you’ve failed.
I think it might just mean you’re human.
And maybe — like me —
you’re a young man built to fall.
And maybe that’s not something to fix.
Maybe it’s something to understand.
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