23.09.2026 Diary XXIII Sometimes it doesn't happen, and it's not you

23.09.2026 Diary Page XXIII

Every outcome has a cause, but not every cause is named you.

Wednesday. Two days ago I wrote about taking responsibility, about the mediocrity of blaming. Today I have to sit across from that piece. Because if it is left standing alone, that piece takes a person to the wrong place.

To this place: "So if it is not working, it is because of me."

No. Sometimes it does not work no matter what you do. And that is not about you either.

Let us first admit this

We have a belief. If you do it right, it works. If you work hard enough, it works. If you mean well, it works. If you are prepared, it works.

The reason we love this belief is clear: it makes the world predictable. If there is a formula, fear lessens.

But this belief has a price. On the day it does not work although you did it right, you are left with a single explanation: you must not have done it right enough.

Yet the truth is this: outcomes are not in the hands of one person.

The pictures I have seen

I am not describing people, I am describing pictures.

The best-prepared proposal does not always win the job. The decision maker is in a bad mood that week, the budget has changed, someone knows someone, or there really is a more suitable job and nobody tells you.

The most properly done work can stay on a shelf for a reason you never hear about. The company changes direction, the project closes, that person leaves the job. It has nothing to do with the quality of what you produced.

The most honest conversation can land on a day when the other person is not ready. If you said the same sentence a year later, they would hug you in tears; today you are talking to a wall.

On the day you are best prepared, you can be sick. Lack of sleep, your period, a loved one's trouble, something going wrong at home. You are the same you, your capacity that day is not.

None of this is explained by "you did not try hard enough."

What the result of a job is the sum of

This is how I explain it to myself.

In the outcome of a job there are three things: what you did, what the other person did, and what is in neither of your hands.

The third is bigger than everyone thinks. Timing, the economy, who was where that day, who needed what, coincidence. You can call it fortune, you can call it circumstances, you do not even have to name it.

Your share is only one of these three. Responsibility is valid inside that one. If you try to take on the other two as well, you have shouldered a load you cannot lift.

The interesting thing is this: the people who shoulder this load are usually the most responsible ones. The ones who do not care do not take it on anyway.

Separating out your own share

So how are we going to separate it? This is how I am trying.

Look at the process, not the result. Did I deliver what I promised on time? Did I do the best I could with the information I had? Did I act honestly? These are my share. The other person saying yes is not.

Is there a repeating pattern? If it happened once, it is circumstances. If the same thing has happened for the fifth time in the same way, then there is a share of mine in it too. If there is a pattern, look; if it is a one-off, let it go.

Am I asking for the information in time? Judging the me of that day with something I learned later is unfair. That I know today what I did not know that day does not make my decision of that day a bad one.

What would I say to a friend in the same situation? This question solves it almost every time. Because I would never say to my friend "so you must not have wanted it enough."

ADHD's share in this

Making this distinction is harder for someone with ADHD. I know the reason.

For years you have received feedback. You are messy, you are late, you forget, you could have done it but you did not. Some of it is fair, some of it is unfair, but all of it piles up in the same place: the problem is me.

Then it turns into a habit. Whatever happens, you look at yourself first. When a job goes wrong, when a relationship cools, when a message goes unanswered, the first question you ask is "what did I do."

This is called a ready ground. Whatever falls on it sticks.

There is a flip side to this too: rejection sensitivity. A small negative answer creating a disproportionate collapse in a person. In the moment of that collapse, saying the sentence "this is not about me" feels almost impossible.

So I make this distinction after the feeling has passed. Not the same day. The next morning. The sentences I make in the morning are always fairer than the ones from the evening.

That something hurts does not show that it is your fault. Pain is not evidence.

Success stories mislead us

There is one more thing, and I think it is the one that deceives the most.

We only hear about the jobs that worked out. Books, interviews, the people speaking on stage. All of them tell it with the same structure: it was hard, I did not give up, in the end it worked.

The ones who walked the same road and it did not work do not speak. They have no book. They showed the same courage, lived through the same night, took the same risk, and it did not happen. Because the outcome was different, the story is not told.

When it is like this, we are left with a wrong formula: if you do not give up, it happens. Yet the truth is this: not giving up increases the chance, it does not guarantee the outcome.

Knowing this does not make a person pessimistic. Quite the opposite, on the day it does not happen you judge yourself less. Because you know that the road you walked was not walked by many people, and that they struggled just like you.

The matter of timing

And there is timing. The thing nobody can do justice to.

The same idea, a year earlier, nobody cares about; a year later it becomes exactly what is needed. The same sentence weighs heavy one day and fits perfectly another day. The same work finds a different response depending on the day it is sent.

We have no control over this at all. The only thing we have is being ready and continuing to try. That is, continuing to knock on the door without knowing when the door will open.

A door not opening does not mean you knocked the wrong way. Sometimes there is nobody inside.

So are we going to surrender

No. There is a subtle place here.

The sentence "sometimes it does not happen" is not a white flag, it is a share of reality. The difference between the two is what you do after the sentence.

The person who surrenders does not try again. The person who separates out their share tries again, but lifting themselves off the ground.

This is how I think about it: the only thing in your hand is playing the game right. There is no game that guarantees winning. Playing right increases the chance of winning, it does not guarantee it.

This sentence saddens a person a little. But once it settles in, it comforts. Because at the next loss you do not need to tear yourself down.

The list of what I have

For a while, when I got tired of counting the things that did not happen, I made myself a reverse list. The list of what I have.

How prepared I was. Whether I kept to the date I promised. Whether I was honest while speaking. Whether I rested when I was tired. Whether I made the decision to drop a job out of fear or by thinking. How I treated myself.

There is not a single outcome in this list. All of it is behavior.

Then I wrote the other list opposite it: what I do not have. The mood of the person across from me. Their budget. How many hours they were stuck in traffic that day. A company's strategy. The economy. Illness. Coincidence.

Looking at the second list a person is surprised, because so many of the things that determine our lives stand there.

After a job that went badly, remembering these two lists helps. I look at the first list and ask "am I missing something here." If I am, I fix it. I read the second list and let it go, because there is nothing I can do there. I noticed that for years I had been judging myself for the items on the second list.

After something that did not happen

There is a small order I try to follow when something does not happen.

First I feel sad. I do not skip it. Saying "it doesn't matter" does not work, it comes out from somewhere later.

Then I look at my own share. A single question: is there something concrete I will do differently next time? If there is, I write it down. If there is not, I say there is not, and I am not ashamed to say that to myself.

Then I let go. This is the hardest part. Because the mind does not want to close that file, it opens it again and again. Every time it opens, I say the same sentence: this file has been looked at, my share was this much, the rest was not in my hands.

Sometimes it has to be said ten times. That is fine.

What I wrote to myself today

Everything that does not happen has a reason, but not all the reasons are named you.

Look for your share, do not take more than your share. Taking more is not a virtue, it is tiredness.

If there is a pattern, look; if it is a one-off, let it go.

Judge your decision not by the result but by the information you had that day.

And however much something hurt, that does not mean it is that much your fault. Pain is not a measuring instrument.

Sometimes it does not happen no matter what you do.

Accepting this is not being defeated. It is only accepting that the world does not revolve around you. Strange, but this is something that comforts a person.