Letter of recommendation: Failing
Also sucking, biffing, losing, missing
There are a few different definitions of “eat shit.”
(Excuse the profanity.)
Urban Dictionary puts in bluntly: To fall with a lot of force. They include a disclaimer: Eating shit may result in injury.
The “Wikitionary” is quite thorough—four possibilities:
To fall and land on one's face (Synonym: faceplant)
To experience a catastrophic breakdown
To do something disgusting or strongly undesirable
To be soundly defeated
There is a handy pronunciation guide as well. It may help this Reddit user struggling with the nuances of American slang.
Dictionary.com says it is To submit to degrading treatment. Their secondary definition, Eat crap, doesn’t have the same zip.
Most thrillingly, Green’s Dictionary of Slang enumerates every cultural and literary reference to the phrase since 1941. *Drools*
This year I ate shit a lot.
On the Boston Asian Men’s League baseball team, my batting average came out impressively close to 0. I struck out at least once a game, usually twice, often thrice. I bungled throws. I missed fly balls. One time I was tracking a pop fly thinking vaguely that I was going to biff it and I collided with a truck of a Korean man (center fielder). I ricocheted off him, caught air, and landed in a limp heap on the ground. My friend said I looked like a rag doll. When I stood up I felt like the Memoji with the birds flying around my head. Needless to say, the catch went uncaught.
I went surfing. I went for waves. I didn’t catch them. I zoned out. I chickened out. I second-guessed and let good sets pass. I got stuck inside. I got pissy. I was a dick to someone just trying to help and in doing so I contaminated a truly lovely evening, the kind of evening that was all I could or would ever dare to ask God or mother nature or the sea or sky for.
I took a drawing class. I tried to draw an elbow. I tried to draw a canoe. I tried to draw Count Dracula; I involuntarily drew John Travolta.
I tried to farm. I tried to garden. I tried to drill a hole in the ground to put a tulip bulb in there; I broke the drill bit—twice. (I was drilling in the wrong direction.) I tried to grow vegetables to subside on. I grew four disfigured carrots, a bouquet of emaciated celery, enough cracked cherry tomatoes to garnish one plucky side salad, and a friendless dahlia. I tried to dump a wheelbarrow. I tried to let go of things not for me.
I ate shit.
I tried standup comedy. I told a disproportionate number of semen-related jokes. (Excuse the vulgarity.) Why did I do that? Well, why shouldn’t I have done that? In comedy they call what I did bombing.
I tried to say how I was feeling. I tried to change how I was feeling. I tried to be patient and kind. I tried to be wise and generous. I tried to be fair. I tried to be lovable. I tried to be normal. I ate shit.
I tried to be accepting. I tried to be understanding. I tried to be a good friend. I tried to honor my commitments. I tried to not make everything about me. I ate shit.
And then one miraculous day this fall—I remember the exact moment: I had just kicked a soccer ball the wrong direction to the wrong person—I realized that, somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling anything when I failed.
By coming up short on a regular basis, by sucking so much so often, by swinging and missing, by standing up only to fall down, by saying something when I should have said nothing or saying nothing when I could have said anything, eating shit lost its sting. Without expressly trying to, I defanged failure. It’s just failure. It doesn’t make me special, it doesn’t make me worthless. I get knocked down by a man named Kim, I get up again. I fail over and over and over and over again. It means nothing.
And now that failure’s not a fear, I focus entirely on the task at hand. I try harder and care less.
I recommend failing as often as possible. It’s exposure therapy.
Come, let’s expose ourselves…
