When was the last time you failed?

Like really, really screwed up? Maybe you messed up a relationship, lost a lot of money, binge watched porn after a long time, or even made a decision which resulted in something so dark and terrible that you will never let it see the light of day.

If you feel like your entire life up till now is full of mistakes and is a failure, its o.k.

Really, it is.

When you realize how much others around us who seem successful are actually failing, you’ll see that we are all riding this shit

storm of a life together.

No one is perfect. I call everyone who seems “normal” or even “perfect” in their own way “the crowd”.

Here are some examples of some of the people in the crowd that society has picked out for us to look up to based on our perception of happiness and success.

In my years of writing, coaching and speaking on recovery, I’ve come across all versions of them- multiple times.

That happy, pretty couple that seems to have the perfect relationship, but is actually unhappy and fighting when out of the public eye, because both of them are cheating on each other, and cant leave each other because of co-dependency issues. Forever adding and deleting their Tinder profiles, being “on and off again”, and swirling in high drama situations.

That “balling entrepreneur” on Instagram who seems to be travel the world, show off his tanned six pack, dine out in fancy restaurants and party at the hottest venues is actually broke and in debt up to his eyeballs. He spends half his day blocking numbers from collection agencies and the other half finding out ways to support his habit of visiting high end transgender prostitutes.

That really goodlooking guy who seems to do well with all the ladies is actually confused about his sexuality because he was sexually abused by his uncle who babysat him as a kid. He’s tired of hiding his secret and at least once a week seriously contemplates suicide. He’s also never actually had sex with any of the women he’s seen with- everyone just thinks he does. Every evening, he browses Craigslist looking for anonymous sex with married older men around his Uncles age.

The doctor with the successful private practice, trophy wife, beautiful family and mansion in a gated neighborhood who hates his life and dreads going to work everyday, because he finally realized that it was his family that forced him to go to med school, marry young and have kids. Now he has a reputation to uphold, 5 figure mortgage payments and three kids to put through school for the rest of his young life. At work, he hides in his office and spends hours masturbating to live cam girls. Some evening he lies and says he can’t make it to dinner because of an emergency at the clinic, but actually goes to a strip club across town. He even changes his clothes before he returns home.

The married, famous motivational speaker in her 40s, with numerous best selling books who inspires millions with her speeches about love, hope, fixing your brokenness and success through being your authentic self is actually narcissistic and selfish. Only her husband and children know the extent of her true nature. On her speaking tours, she goes out to high end bars to be picked up by younger men whom she has unprotected sex with. She justifies it by telling herself that she just has a “high sex drive”.

The lovable middle school teacher whom all the parents love and who wins awards every year, but has severe social anxiety outside of his school setting. He stalks his female students on social media and even masturbates in the bathroom after meetings with them. Ever day, he cant wait to get home and masturbate to “barely legal” porn. He’s recently found a part of the internet where there are forums exchanging images of children being sexually abused, and despite the consequences, he find himself unable to stop moving in that deadly direction.

If you’ve always wondered if you were being fed bullshit most of your life by people whom society elevated- you were right. Sexual addiction is more pervasive than you could ever imagine and it affects the “best, brightest and most blessed” among us.

The worst part is that those who should be helping you, those who should be opening your eyes to the dangers on porn and sexual addiction are so caught up in their own addiction- so in denial of their own realities, that they make it seem as if there is nothing like porn addiction or sexual addiction.

Come the fuck on.

Anyone with common sense knows that enjoying lots of sex doesn’t make you a sex addict.

A little reflection will reveal that masturbation is natural. Heck, I learned about masturbation during a school trip to the zoo when I saw a male baboon masturbating to a female baboon. I thought “ Holy shit! So thats how its done! I no longer have to pretend to the other guys in the class that I masturbate as well!.”

We all know that pornography has existed since the dawn of man and that prostitution is the worlds oldest profession.

(Well, if you didn’t know any of those things, now you do)

But anyone reading this knows one thing for sure: Overindulgence in pornography and sex has serious negative consequences.

I started watching porn and masturbating as a teen experimenting with sexuality as all normal teens do. Next thing I knew, I was running back to porn to fix all my issues, deal with stress, heartbreak, anxiety and failure. Finally, I was hooked on it. I became a man still hooked on it.

When you look around you and wonder why our society is so sexualized, just know that it isn’t by accident.

Sex sells and thanks to the internet, we live in a world that has more sex and porn addicts than ever before. Our doctors, pastors, politicians, teachers, parents and protectors (the crowd) are all counted among the victims.

So again I say, its o.k to fail. I failed and underachieved till the age of 23. Then, I quit porn and dealt with its effects for the next three years. Then I broke free and when I did- I KNEW I was free.

No matter where you are in your journey with this- maybe you are three decades in, or just 3 years in, this is a journey of failure. You will fail your way to freedom.

Just don’t be one who fails and justifies his failure by joining the crowd.

When your addiction has driven you to the edge, it is this same crowd that will deny that you have a problem. The crowd will minimize it. And when you act out, this same crowd will condemn you, lynch you, brand you as damaged and cast you out.

That’s my rant of the week.