Jeremiah Frizzell: Life is Hard - Chapter 4

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Think about the last time you failed. Maybe it was a class you struggled in, a job you didn’t get, or a friendship that ended badly. In that moment, how did you feel? Defeated? Embarrassed? Maybe even worthless? I’ll give a quick example of one of my failures, and anyone is welcome to share some of theirs. In high school, I was a trumpet player selected to play “TAPS” at our Veterans Day ceremony. I practiced every day for weeks; however, when it came time to play it, I choked and forgot to play part of the piece. To me, I had failed every veteran who was there at that ceremony, as well as those who couldn’t be. It took me a while before I got my confidence back because I felt like I could never play the trumpet again. That’s the thing, failure can feel like a verdict, as if the story of our life has gone off-script.

Philosopher Kieran Setiya, in his book Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way, says something surprising about this feeling. He argues that failure isn’t just unavoidable, but that it’s an essential part of what it means to live a meaningful life. In Chapter 4, titled “Failure”, Setiya challenges our obsession with success. He asks us to stop treating life as a single, linear story and to see failure as a valuable and normal part of being human.

The Problem: The “Narrative Trap” 

From the get-go, Setiya points out the problem: He calls this problem the “Narrative Trap.”

From a young age, we’re taught to live life like a story with a clear arc: “Set a goal. Work hard. Achieve it. Then you’ll be happy.” Our culture constantly celebrates this idea — in movies, on social media, and even in graduation speeches. Look at the U.S., are we not judged by what we have, what we make, or what we wear? We imagine our lives as stories of success, where everything builds toward some grand purpose: getting into the right school, landing the perfect job, finding “the one.” While this sounds good, it is actually leading you into a trap: Now, when you fail, or when that story doesn’t go as planned, it feels like your life itself has failed. You consider yourself a failure. 

Setiya calls this a dangerous illusion. When you define yourself entirely by a single project or goal, your sense of self-worth becomes fragile. One setback and your entire story shatters before you. Think of a student who studies as hard as they can to pass a class but ultimately doesn’t make it. Or a student who dreams of being a lawyer but can’t get in. In these situations, it is easy to think: “I failed; therefore, I am a failure.” But Setiya invites us to pause and ask: why should one outcome determine the meaning of an entire life?

This question connects to a much older philosophical idea — Aristotle’s view of the good life. For Aristotle, flourishing isn’t about a single victory or achievement; it’s about how we live day to day, the activities we engage in, and the virtues we practice. Meaning isn’t found at the finish line — it’s found in the process of living itself. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle describes this way of life as a separation of Telic and Atelic activities. Telic Activities are those which we can complete, and Atelic Activities are those which are not determined to end, or the process. Aristotle urged everyone to focus on those atelic activities, or the process. 

Reframing Failure: Valuing Process Over Outcomes 

So now we get to how we should rethink failure? Setiya suggests that we stop defining our lives in terms of projects or some final goal, and instead value activities and the process, things we do for their own sake. Activities like playing music, making art, spending time with friends, or learning something new. These aren’t just means to an end; they’re meaningful in the doing. A life devoted entirely to projects is hostage to fortune; a good life is one where the doing itself matters more than the outcome.

This is a powerful shift. It means even when you fail to reach a goal, the activity you engaged in still holds meaning. The athlete who never wins still finds value in training, discipline, and teamwork. The artist whose work goes unnoticed still finds joy and purpose in creating. This echoes Stoic philosophy. The Stoics believed that we can’t control outcomes, only our attitudes and actions. Success and failure are partly out of our hands, but our engagement with the world, our persistence, and our effort are within our control. So instead of saying, “I failed,” say, “I learned.” By reshifting the focus from the outcome to the process, we can reclaim our sense of worth.

Why This Matters: Failure as a Human Condition 

You might be wondering, "Why does this matter?" Why should we change the way we think about failure?  

First, because it’s humanizing. To fail is to be human. No one’s life unfolds without disappointment, and no one’s story follows a perfect arc. If one of you hasn’t been disappointed yet, I would be surprised and would ask that you spill your secrets of life to all of us.  Accepting that helps us treat others and ourselves with more compassion. When we stop pretending that success defines us, we open ourselves up to more authentic forms of living: connection, curiosity, humility, and resilience. Second, this view challenges a deeper cultural problem. We’re surrounded by metrics: grades, followers, income, and awards. Our self-worth becomes data-driven. But as Setiya points out, this focus on achievement can make life narrower, not fuller. If meaning only comes from success, then most of our life starts to feel meaningless. Philosophy helps us resist that. It reminds us that a good life is not one without failure, but one where we stay engaged, learning, connecting, striving, even when things don’t go our way, which tends to be a lot. In this sense, failure isn’t something to fear. It’s a reminder that we’re alive and still in motion.

Conclusion

So what would it mean to rethink failure the way Setiya suggests?

It means celebrating effort over outcome. It means seeing our setbacks and failures not as the end of the story, but as the start of a new chapter in a much bigger, richer narrative. Setiya’s message is simple but radical: life is hard, and failure is part of that hardness. But philosophy gives us a way to live well with difficulty, not just despite it. We don’t need to erase our failures or be ashamed of them to live meaningful lives. We need to embrace them as proof that we’re still striving, still learning, becoming who we are. So, next time you fail, which you will. Don’t ask yourself, “Did I win?” but “Was I engaged? Did I show up? Did I care?” We do not fail because life is hard — life is hard, and that’s what makes it worth living.

                                 

                                                                                                                                                       For those of you who want a quick overview of the ideas brought up in the whole book, here is an interview with Kiran Setiya about his book.