7 Failures Everybody Needs to Have (Only Once)

1. The "Everything's Fine" Failure

Let's say you lose the job you've had for the past 20 years. In fact, let's say it wasn't even due to layoffs or the recession. It was your fault. You got overwhelmed, forgot about the quarterly numbers report and got canned. Of course, you don't want to tell your family or friends about it. It's embarrassing. So you sit at home cringing, only perking up when people call to see how you are. "Everything's fine!" you say. You may even repeat this line to yourself—until the credit card and mortgage payments are due. All of sudden, your original failure is not so tough to deal with when compared with the new slide-for-life failure you're now facing. Figuring your way out of this kind of compounded mess is rough, but at one point or another, however, we all have to go through it—otherwise, how we would we ever learn to utter that most revealing and intimate word? I'm talking about the one that binds us to other people via trust, need and honesty, the one also known in the dictionary as "help."