The One Question That Changed How I See Failure

There's a moment I keep coming back to. Not because it was dramatic — it wasn't. No revelation struck me like lightning. No voice from the heavens. Just a quiet afternoon, a group of people waiting for tasks, and a question that surfaced from somewhere I hadn't been paying attention to.

Is this it? Is this all there is?

I was in my late twenties, part of an inner circle in a spiritual organization. An organization that had given me a lot — and was now, slowly, becoming something I didn't recognize.

The Good Years

Let me be clear about something: this isn't a story about seven wasted years. That would be too simple, and also not true.

The first five years were genuinely formative. I learned things I still carry with me. Metaphysical concepts that shaped how I see reality. Psycho-astrology, which I actually used. The discipline of journaling — a habit I've maintained for three decades now. The choice to become vegetarian, which stuck.

I met good people. I had good teachers. I learned how to think about things I hadn't known existed.

Those five years weren't a mistake. They were an education.

"Not everything that ends badly was bad from the beginning. Sometimes good things just rot. And you don't notice the smell until it's too late."

In year six, I joined the inner circle — a small team focused on research and development. Software, methodologies, exploration. It felt like a promotion. Like being invited to the place where the real work happened.

For a while, it was exactly that.

The Turn

Year seven is when things changed.

Not overnight. Gradually. The way milk sours — you don't notice it's happening until suddenly it's unmistakably off.

The research team stopped researching. The development work dried up. We became, slowly but undeniably, a labor pool. Administrative tasks. Manual work. Busywork designed to keep us occupied rather than productive.

The organization I'd joined — the one focused on growth and exploration — was becoming something else. More rigid. More commercial. More interested in obedience than development.

I watched the thing I'd believed in transform into something I didn't recognize.

"It's one thing to join something that turns out to be bad. It's another to watch something good become bad while you're standing inside it."

The moment I remember most clearly was an ordinary afternoon. Half of us had finished our assigned work early. There was nothing left to do. By any reasonable logic, we could have returned to the development work we'd originally been brought in for.

Instead, the teacher spent considerable effort finding tasks for the remaining half. Not because the tasks were necessary — they weren't. But because, apparently, we needed to be busy. Occupied. Doing something, anything, as long as we weren't thinking.

I watched him assign meaningless work to people who had joined to do meaningful work, and something clicked.

Is this it?

It's like watching someone take Einstein out of the laboratory and hand him a shovel. "Here, dig. We'll let you know when we need relativity again."

That comparison is generous to myself, obviously. But the feeling was real: we'd been converted from thinkers to workers, and the organization I'd loved had become something I didn't want to be part of.

Why I Stayed Too Long

Here's the part where I'd love to tell you I immediately saw the truth and walked away with my dignity intact.

I didn't.

I stayed for another year after that moment. And if I'm being honest — which I'm apparently attempting here — I probably would have stayed even longer if the decision had been entirely mine.

Why? Psychologists have a name for this: the sunk cost fallacy.¹ We keep investing in things that aren't working because we've already invested so much. The more we've put in, the harder it becomes to walk away — even when walking away is clearly the right move.

I'd invested seven years. My identity. My community. My sense of purpose. Leaving meant admitting that the thing I'd built my life around had changed into something I couldn't support anymore.

And also, honestly? I was scared.

Not of the teacher. Not of the system. Of the regular world. The one outside, where people had jobs and relationships and made decisions without a structure telling them what to do. I'd spent my entire adult life inside this bubble. I had no idea how to function outside of it.

"The prison was entirely in my head — which, if you think about it, is the most effective kind. No locks required when you've convinced yourself you can't survive outside."

Let's be clear about something: nobody forced me to stay. There was no locked door. No armed guards. I could have left any Tuesday. What kept me there was a combination of fear, hope, and the very human tendency to stick with what we know — even when what we know is slowly falling apart.

Was I cautious? Yes. Scared? Definitely. Hoping things would somehow go back to how they were? Absolutely.

After that afternoon, something started to shift. Not dramatically — more like a slow leak in a tire. The ideal I'd built in my head began to deflate, one small disappointment at a time.

Is this it?

The question kept coming back. And each time it did, the answer got a little clearer.

No. This isn't it. This isn't even close. Not anymore.

It took another year for me to finally leave. A year of watching something I'd loved continue to decay. A year of slowly gathering the courage to act on what I could clearly see.

"There's nothing quite like watching a slow-motion car crash from inside the car, thinking 'I should probably get out,' and then just... not getting out. For months. In my defense, the seats were comfortable and I'd memorized all the radio stations."

That's not a tragedy. That's just a guy in his twenties learning — slowly — that seeing clearly and acting clearly are two very different skills.

What Was Actually Lost

So here's the honest accounting:

What wasn't lost: Five years of genuine formation. Concepts and practices that shaped who I became. Journaling. Vegetarianism. Ways of thinking I still use. Good people I'm grateful I met.

What was lost: About two years. The time between when I saw the turn and when I finally left. The period where I stayed out of fear and inertia, watching something decay, hoping it would magically improve.

That's the actual "failure," if we're going to call it that. Not the seven years. Just the part where I saw clearly and didn't act.

But here's the thing — even that taught me something I couldn't have learned any other way.

The Reframe

Here's what I've come to understand, and it took me embarrassingly long to get here:

There is no such thing as failure. There's only the outcome you wanted and the outcome you got.

That's it. That's the whole insight.

"Failure" is just a label we attach to outcomes that don't match our expectations. It's not a property of the experience itself — it's a judgment we add afterward. The experience just is. What we call it is entirely up to us.

Those seven years didn't fail me. The first five formed me. Year six excited me. Year seven taught me what decay looks like from the inside — and how I respond to it (slowly, at first, but eventually).

Without all of it, I wouldn't have walked into my next practice with my eyes open. I wouldn't have known what transformation looks like. I wouldn't have developed the internal alarm system that now goes off whenever I sense a group valuing obedience over growth.

Was year seven what I wanted? No.

Was staying too long what I wanted? Definitely not.

Was all of it — the formation, the excitement, the decay, the fear, the eventual leaving — what I needed? Apparently, yes.

"Seven years learning what works, what doesn't, and how long I'll tolerate watching something die before I finally walk away. Full curriculum, no electives."

The Question Behind Every "Failure"

Here's the thing about decisions: every single one excludes infinite alternatives.

When I joined that organization at twenty, I didn't join the hundreds of other things I could have done with those years. When I stayed past the turn, I didn't leave earlier. When I finally left, I didn't stay longer. Each choice closed doors I'll never know existed.

This means "it could have been different" is always true. Always. For every decision you've ever made.

But if it's always true, it's also meaningless. It's not information — it's just noise. A way of torturing yourself with parallel universes you'll never visit.

The question that actually helps isn't "what if I'd done something different?"

It's: "What did this experience make possible that wouldn't have been possible otherwise?"

Not "what did I lose?" but "what did I gain that I couldn't have gained any other way?"

This isn't positive thinking. I'm not asking you to pretend bad experiences were secretly good. The last two years genuinely sucked. Watching something you love decay is painful. Staying too long out of fear is embarrassing.

But even the parts that sucked gave me something. The ability to recognize decay early. The knowledge of how I respond to difficult situations — and the motivation to respond faster next time. The understanding that good things can become bad things, and loyalty to the memory of what was good doesn't mean you should stay for what it's become.

That's not failure. That's tuition.

What Regret Actually Is

Let me tell you what regret is, stripped of all the emotional weight we give it:

Regret is the experience of having information now that you didn't have then.

That's it.

When you regret a decision, you're essentially saying: "If I knew then what I know now, I would have chosen differently." Which is obviously true — and completely useless. Because you didn't know. You couldn't have known. You made the best decision available with the information you had at the time.

Psychologists call this hindsight bias — the tendency to look back at past events and believe we "should have known" what would happen.² But we couldn't have. We're judging our past selves with information only our present selves possess.

"Regret is just hindsight bullying your past self. And your past self was doing their best with what they had. Even if 'their best' was staying too long because leaving felt scary."

I don't regret those seven years. Not the good parts — those formed me. And not even the difficult parts — those taught me.

What I've learned to do is separate the experiences: honor what was valuable, learn from what wasn't, and stop pretending it was all one thing or the other.

Life is rarely that clean.

The Practical Part

So how do you actually use this? Because philosophy is nice, but it doesn't pay the bills or fix your mood at 3 AM when you're replaying your mistakes.

Here's what works for me:

When you catch yourself labeling something a "failure," pause. Ask: is this actually a failure, or is it just an outcome I didn't want? There's a difference. And sometimes what looks like one thing is actually several things — some valuable, some not.

Separate the strands. Most experiences aren't all good or all bad. What parts of this experience were genuinely valuable? What parts weren't? Don't throw out the whole thing just because part of it turned sour.

Ask the useful question. Not "why did this happen to me?" or "what's wrong with me?" but "what did this make possible?" What do you know now that you didn't know before? What door opened because this one closed?

Practice the time-travel test. If you're regretting a decision, ask: did I have the information I needed to choose differently at the time? If not, then regret is just self-punishment dressed up as wisdom. Drop it.

Accept that good things can become bad things. And that's not your fault. Your only responsibility is to notice when it happens and respond appropriately. If you responded slowly, like I did, learn from that. But don't pretend the whole thing was rotten from the start.

The Question That Changed Everything

I started with a question: Is this it? Is this all there is?

That question felt like betrayal at the time. Like disloyalty to something I'd loved.

But it wasn't betrayal. It was clarity. The thing I'd loved had changed. The question was just me finally noticing.

The seven years weren't a failure. The first five were formation. Year six was excitement. Year seven was education of a different kind — the kind where you learn what decay looks like, how fear keeps you stuck, and how long it takes you to finally act on what you can see.

Is this it?

No. It wasn't. There was more.

But I had to walk through that — all of it, the good and the bad — to get to this.

For You

If you're carrying something you've labeled a "failure" — a relationship, a job, a project, a period of your life — I want you to consider the possibility that you've mislabeled it.

Maybe it wasn't all bad. Maybe there were years that formed you, followed by a period that didn't. Maybe the experience was valuable until it wasn't.

And maybe the only actual "failure" — if we're going to use that word — was staying too long after you saw the turn. Not the whole thing. Just the part where you knew and didn't act.

Even that taught you something. Even that was tuition.

The next time you catch yourself replaying a decision, wishing you'd done something different, try asking a different question:

What did this experience make possible?

And then, if you want to be really honest:

What parts were valuable, and what parts weren't?

You might be surprised at how different the accounting looks when you separate the strands.

Not everything that ends badly was bad from the beginning.

Sometimes good things just change.

And your job is to notice when they do — and eventually, to leave.

Even if "eventually" takes longer than you'd like.

~ Soren Ross

Notes & References

¹ Arkes, H.R. & Blumer, C. (1985). "The psychology of sunk cost." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 35(1), 124-140. The sunk cost fallacy explains why we continue investing in failing endeavors simply because we've already invested so much.

² Fischhoff, B. (1975). "Hindsight is not equal to foresight: The effect of outcome knowledge on judgment under uncertainty." Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 1(3), 288-299.