It's So Embarrassing to Fail

On Sunday, I challenged myself again and planned on going to the bathroom in a busy grocery store. When I got there, I found out that you needed a keycode to get in. That wasn’t going to work. The friction involved in tracking down an employee to get the code meant that the likelihood of anyone else being in the bathroom would be way lower. Not challenging enough.

I left that store and went to a different one nearby. It was a much larger grocery store with tons of people inside. I wandered around for 15 minutes looking for the bathroom before I eventually gave up. As I walked outside, I noticed the bathrooms were in the very front of the store. So I went inside. The bathroom was surprisingly empty, even though the store was so busy. Probably because other people couldn’t find the bathrooms either.

Oh, well.

I stood in front of one of the two urinals and unzipped. These urinals had an even larger divider between them than I was used to and I found I had to go more urgently than I’d realized. The stream began quickly. A few seconds later, three people entered the bathroom. Fortunately I don’t have any issues continuing a stream once it’s started and the other folks in the bathroom didn’t bother me. I finished up and left, feeling great about my progress.

However, a couple days later I tried something new. I hadn’t fluid-loaded and tried going with my wife in the bathroom as we both got ready for bed. I didn’t have to go urgently, but I like to go before bed so I don’t wake up during the night needing to pee. I stood in front of the toilet and felt the urge fade within seconds. I hadn’t done the breath-hold to calm myself down first. I hadn’t fluid-loaded. I didn’t even have to go all that urgently.

And nothing happened.

I let it go and decided to get ready for bed and not worry about it, but I couldn’t help feeling demotivated. I’d been doing so well. Every barrier I’d come up against so far I’d been able to push through easier than I’d expected. But not this one. I’m not sure if I changed too many things at once, I let myself get into my head, or what. Regardless, this failure hurt my momentum.

The next day I practiced in the Wal-Mart bathroom again. This time there were people inside already. I knew my goal wasn’t to pee, but just to stand there for a couple of minutes to get comfortable. That’s what I did, and that’s all I did because nothing else happened. The urge was there, but I couldn’t make it happen. I guess I just started expecting myself to be able to go anywhere as soon as I had some success. I think I got ahead of myself.

It’s hard to stay with this and write this sharing that I was stupid this week and kind of backslid a bit. I’m not proud of it, but this is where I’m at.

I’m not going to stop practicing. If it takes weeks of me standing at the urinal feeling stupid, then so be it. If I have to fail in front of my wife, then so be it.

Getting over this thing isn’t about doing all this perfectly. I’m not perfect. That’s never going to happen. What I can do is keep trying and push myself forward even when I feel like this.

There are only two directions: moving forward, or falling back. And I’m not falling back. I’ve made real progress and I’m not giving it up. I’m getting over this thing and I don’t care how long it takes.