What is success anyway? From Webster's dictionary: Success : 2 b: favorable or desired outcome Failure : 2 a: lack of success I have really felt like a failure lately. I use " lately " loosely--it's pretty much been my whole life, but that's another story. I have been unable to reach any " desired outcomes ". I reach lots of outcomes, but they never seem to be the ones I really desire. Part of that is simply a fear of failure at things that really matter. Who's with me? But what is success anyway? Isn't it just screwing things up over and over again until you get it right? Learning from our mistakes? Gaining experience by doing it wrong? Yes, yes and yes, but do we like the periods of screwing things up? Absolutely not! It sucks... Here's the real question though: What if we actually do succeed, but we " succeed at things in life that don't really matter" ? Or, as Stephen Covey put it