My sister once asked me if it was a curse to get everything you want.

At first, it seemed like an odd question. Why would getting what you want ever be a bad thing?

Looking back, I understand what she meant.

As someone who has eventually gotten many of the things I’ve wanted, I can say there is something bittersweet about it. I can also look back at certain things I desperately wanted years ago and realize that had I received them when I asked for them, they probably would have been a disaster.

Sometimes not getting what we want when we want it saves us from ourselves.

We all know people who seem to have life figured out. From the outside, it can be difficult to find a flaw. Things seem to fall into place for them. They get the relationship, the career, the opportunity, the lifestyle. Meanwhile, someone else can seemingly do everything right and still experience one setback after another.

Most of us probably fall somewhere between those two extremes.

We have victories. We have failures. We have things that worked out exactly as we hoped and other things we would rather erase from the record entirely.

But maybe that is part of what humbles us.

Part of getting what you want is first knowing what you want and then being willing to do what it takes to pursue it.

If you want to become a doctor, for example, you take the prerequisite classes. You study. You spend time around other students pursuing the same path. You learn what medical schools expect of you.

Knowing the path, however, doesn’t guarantee you’ll walk it perfectly.

I know that from experience.

I was once a pre-med major, and I can tell you that sometimes it is much easier to drop the class than risk failing it.

Failure forces you to confront yourself.

If you stick it out and fail, eventually you have to move beyond feeling sorry for yourself and ask uncomfortable questions. What went wrong? What could I have done differently? Do I still want this badly enough to try again?

Maybe you retake the class the following semester. Maybe you give yourself some time and come back better prepared. Maybe you realize that this particular path was never right for you at all.

Your original grade is still on the transcript.

You can’t erase it.

But what comes afterward can change the story that transcript tells.

I think life works much the same way.

Our existence is like a transcript we cannot completely wipe clean. There will probably be choices we regret, opportunities we missed, relationships we mishandled and things we wish we had understood sooner.

We don’t get to go backward and remove them.

We only get to decide what we do next.

Sometimes walking away is the right decision. Changing your major doesn’t automatically mean you failed. Leaving a relationship, abandoning a plan or admitting that a dream no longer fits you can require its own kind of courage.

The harder question is figuring out the difference between changing direction because you have grown and changing direction because you are afraid to fail.

Comfort isn’t inherently bad.

There are things we become good at because we have spent years mastering them. There are relationships, careers and routines worth maintaining precisely because they work.

But comfort can also become a hiding place.

Sometimes what looks like perfection from the outside is simply someone becoming very good at staying within the boundaries of what they already know they can do.

There is nothing wrong with mastery. But if we never allow ourselves to be beginners again, never risk embarrassment and never put ourselves in situations where failure is possible, we can stop growing without realizing it.

Even plants experience periods of too much rain and periods without enough.

Growth has never required perfect conditions.

The opposite can happen too.

After enough disappointment, a person can become afraid to want anything at all.

It can feel safer to accept whatever comes rather than risk wanting something deeply and losing it. Even when something good finally appears, fear can creep in: How long until this goes wrong?

Sometimes we protect ourselves so well from disappointment that we also protect ourselves from possibility.

That is why I admire people who continue going after what matters to them even after failing.

Not recklessly. Not because every dream must be pursued forever.

But because failure did not remove their ability to hope.

Success isn’t something that happens once and stays with you permanently, either. Many of the things we value require maintenance.

Careers do.

Dreams do.

Relationships certainly do.

Love isn’t proven by never having a difficult moment. Sometimes love is choosing to remain engaged when something becomes uncomfortable, while still knowing when something truly needs to be released.

So is always getting what you want a curse?

Maybe only if getting everything you want prevents you from ever having to learn who you are when you don’t.

Failure requires vulnerability.

You have to care enough about something to risk being disappointed by it. You have to admit that you wanted it. You have to allow yourself to be seen trying.

There is courage in that.

One of the hardest questions we eventually have to ask ourselves is whether we were brave enough to actually participate in our own lives.

Were we creative?

Did we learn who we were?

Did we figure out what mattered to us instead of allowing other people to decide?

Did we chase some of our dreams?

Did we take care of the relationships that mattered?

Did we learn how to love?

And were we willing to fail at some of it?

Fifty years from now, if I am still here, I don’t want to look back only at a list of things I accomplished.

I want to know that I never became so comfortable with success that I stopped growing or so afraid of failure that I stopped trying.

Whether or not I get everything I want between now and then, I hope I never lose the passion, curiosity and vulnerability required to remain a work in progress.