Why Failure Was My First Honest Act

Before I go any further, I need to be clear....especially for my older children. Even in the years when I felt lost, when much of my life felt like a performance, my time with you was never part of that act. What I felt for you was real. My love for you, my pride in watching you grow, my joy in being your dad....none of that was ever false. Those moments were honest. My love for your mother was real too. Whatever else I struggled with, that part of me....the father you knew....was always genuine.

There’s something I had avoided admitting....not just to others, but to myself.

For most of my life, I was chasing an ideal. Not wealth. Not success. Not even happiness. Something harder to explain.

I was trying to be a knight (that just sounds so dumb when I write it).

Not in the fairy tale sense, but something deeper... the chaste, just, brave archetype. Think paladin. The man who stands when others run. Who holds the line. Virtuous, strong, gentle yet resolute. A protector. A leader. Someone others could rely on.

In my head, that’s who I needed to be. And when I look back, I realise just how much that ideal shaped me.

I escaped into fantasy stories as a kid and young adult. Medieval fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons, tales of knights and paladins.....I consumed them all. They weren’t just entertainment. They were a way to imagine myself as those characters. A way to reinforce who I wanted to be. In those daydreams, I wasn’t just Tyron. I was the hero, the leader, the one who stood alone and stood strong. The lines between imagination and identity blurred long before I realised it.

I judged others against that image. I judged myself even harder. Every weakness, every flaw, every human failing felt like proof that I wasn’t enough. That I’d failed the code. Because knights don’t falter. Paladins don’t stray. And good men - real men - don’t betray the ideal.

But life isn’t a fantasy novel. And I’m not a character in a story.

For years, my thoughts and my actions diverged. I acted the part, said the right words, made the right moves, but deep inside, I knew I was drifting from what felt true. The guilt sat like a stone inside me. The grief followed.....grief for the man I wanted to be and couldn’t become.

And beneath all of that was something even harder to admit....I wasn’t just performing for myself. I was performing for others.

I became a chameleon, changing who I was depending on the room I walked into. At work, I was the leader. At home, the provider, the father, the husband. Among friends, the easy-going mate. I adapted not to deceive, but to be accepted. To be liked. Without even realising it, I believed that if I just shaped myself enough, if I adjusted my tone, my opinions, my actions then I’d finally fit. I’d finally be enough.

But the cost was high. Every time I shifted to meet someone else’s expectations, I moved further from who I really was. And the worst part? I didn’t even know who that was anymore.

I thought I was being strategic, being wise, being adaptable. But really, I was just scared that who I was, unpolished and raw, wasn’t worthy.

Then came the moment I couldn’t hide from. The moment I failed.....not just in action, but in identity. I was the cause of a major life changing event.

That’s the moment the knight died.

And it broke everything.

Because I wasn’t supposed to be that man. I wasn’t supposed to fall. But I did. And in falling, something unexpected happened: after all the fires died down, the smoke dissipated and the ash settled.....I felt strangely free.

It sounds strange, maybe even too strange to really understand unless you've lived it, but failure was my first honest act. It was the moment I stopped lying to myself. I wasn’t the man I wanted to be. I wasn’t the knight. I wasn’t the hero. I was just... me.

And that’s when the rebuilding began.

I didn’t rebuild toward the ideal. I rebuilt toward the truth.

That meant accepting my flaws, not as failures, but as realities. It meant dropping the sword and the code and the endless, suffocating pressure to be good, righteous, perfect. It meant forgiving myself for being human.

And in that rebuilding, I saw something else....something I had missed all along. I was good at things. I was smart. I was funny. I was a good athlete. I could talk to anyone. I was intelligent and thoughtful.

How had I ever believed these things weren’t enough? How had I convinced myself that I had to twist and shape those strengths to fit what others expected, instead of letting them simply be who I was?

Why did I see my talents as tools to gain acceptance, rather than as reflections of my true self? That realisation hit me hard.

I wasn’t lacking. I was lost.

I wasn’t broken. I was hidden beneath layers I’d built to survive.

Now, when I think about who I am, I don’t think about the paladin anymore.

I think about the man who wakes up, honest with himself. The man who parents his boys not by preaching virtue, but by living truthfully. The man who loves his wife not by performing romance, but by showing up, raw and real, every day. The man who works, writes, fails, and keeps moving....not toward an image, but toward something far harder to define - authenticity.

I wanted to be the knight. But now, I just want to be a man who tells the truth. Even when that truth is messy. Even when it hurts. Even when it doesn’t look noble.

And for the first time in my life, that feels enough.

If you’re reading this and carrying your own ideal....some impossible standard that feels like both your armour and your cage.....maybe it’s time to ask why. Why you carry it. Why you keep swinging a sword you were never meant to wield. And maybe, just maybe, it’s time to lay that sword down. Not in defeat, but in acceptance. To stand as the man you are, not the man you’ve been trying to be.

There’s a strange, quiet liberation in that moment. I know, because I’ve lived it. And it changed everything.

Because the fall doesn’t have to be failure. It can be the first honest step toward freedom.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s what it means to live true.

For You, Reading This

Maybe you’ve spent your life working too hard to prove you’re enough. Maybe you’ve mistaken your talents for tools. Maybe you’ve convinced yourself that who you are, as you are, couldn’t possibly be sufficient.

If any of that feels familiar, I’m asking you this:

Stop.

Stop shaping yourself for a world that never deserved your pretending in the first place. Look at who you are….beneath the adjustments, the performances, the overthinking. See the blade you already are.

Because the people who love you? They’re not loving the version you’ve crafted. They’re loving the glimpses of your real self that slip through the cracks.

And maybe it’s time to stop hiding.

Maybe it’s time to stop forging.

Because you’re enough.

You always were.....