Remember to Be, not to Do

Today has been the culmination of a really hard week for me. School has decided to rain homework on me and I've barely slept because I've been up all hours of the night working on schoolwork. And while I'm up at 1 or 2 in the morning, I start to think about things I've done in my life and things that I haven't achieved. For some reason, I've been dwelling a lot on my past failures.
Now, I go to therapy once a week, to help me remain more positive and focused on the good things in life. I don't have a problem admitting it. I know without the help of my doctor, I'd be a very depressed person. He helps me see the good, and I'm just trying to help you see the good as well.
Today during my session, I shared some of the things I'd been thinking about this past week. I talked about failures, because that's what's been mostly on my mind. I kept talking about how I thought that if I tried something, and it didn't work out the way I intended it to, then I thought of myself as a failure. As a result of thinking this, I got myself into bad way of thinking. I began thinking that if I don't try, I'd never fail, and therefore be less disappointed and upset with life.
My therapist brought up a good point once I was done talking. He said to me, everyone fails in life. It's impossible to escape failure. And by not trying, you are failing because you're cheating yourself out of opportunities.
Then he said to me, let's think of a positive way to fix your thought process; right now, you believe that if something doesn't work out the way you intended, then you're a failure. But think of it this way: if something doesn't work out the way you want, then what can I learn from this?
That struck me really hard. As of right now, I'd never really thought about what I could learn from life's trials. I always thought that not trying would just eliminate them. But in reality, it just makes them worse.
This is something everyone struggles with. I don't care who you are or where you live. We all have a problem with failing and with learning to learn.
I know that it'll be easier to ask myself what I've learned instead of dwelling on the negative of what I didn't achieve.
But a way to make sure this is easier, is another little trick of positive thinking that was shared with me today. When we think about all the negative things that have happened to us, we think of them in terms of, "this is what we couldn't do." What we don't focus on is what we can be.
This is an important concept. I'm no psychologist so I'll probably do an awful job of explaining this, but I'll try my best.
Let's say you try out for the basketball team, and you get cut. You've put in hours and hours of hard practice. Other things in life have been put on hold, and you've poured your entire heart into being on the basketball team. Then you don't make it. For whatever reason, the coach decides to cut you.
When this happened to me a few years ago, I got incredibly upset. I was absolutely fuming! I was hell to deal with and frankly, I overreacted. I was entirely focused on the do, the playing for the basketball team. I failed to realize the be in the situation. I didn't look at myself and say, well, I didn't make the team. I should have said, look at what I've become. I have become in very good shape. I've become a hard worker and I've become better at managing time, between homework and practice. A bunch of really good things have happened because I decided to put time into something, and even though it didn't work out the way I wanted it to, I've become a better, different person in the process.
Circumstances don't always work out how we want them to. Things happen in ways we can't predict. I myself believe in God, and I believe that sometimes things messing up in life is His way of saying, look, I have a different way for things to go for you, one that will be better.
If you don't believe in a God, just think of hard situations as a long road to a better place.
And always remember, focus on what you have become through all your trials, not what you weren't able to do. What you are now and what you've learned is far more important than any past failure.
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