A boy called, ‘Failure’

A boy was born and his parents named him, ‘Failure’ though they called him, ‘Fail’ for short.

Failure was all he heard throughout his life and he responded to it. They told jokes about him, he laughed with them.

He lived up to his name when at the school football trials his head was not crowned with the teacher’s palm. He walked away believing if anything he had lived up to his name.

He sometimes wanted to be anonymous and rather than hear his name he would skip auditions for the school musical but somehow they still let him in.

One day he met a man who asked his name to which he replied, “ Failure” to which the man asked, “What does your name mean?”

The boy replied that he hadn’t given it much thought, actually he had stopped thinking about it.

“Shall I change your name?”

“No” the boy replied, “ It is only a name given to me, it is the meaning people give to it that matters. For me people always want to make me a success, perhaps if I were called, “ Success” people would want me to fail. When they hear my name almost everyone wants me to be their success.”

“Failure for me means that there are no expectations and I can be whoever and whatever. If they like it they are surprised, if they don’t I hear them say, “What can we expect with a name like that?”

“For me life is for living, the names we are given are a reflection of the givers not of those so called. Whoever heard of a monkey respond to someone calling it ‘Monkey’?”

“Those who know me know who I am and when they call my name what I mean to them is present.

“So no Mister there is no need to change my name it is for people to find its meaning by getting to know me.”

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