Thoughts About Failure.

Reflections on the year that just passed and some more.

Hi there, whoever and wherever you are. Yet another year has flown by at the speed of a leopard running after a succulent prey. We have reached the 365th day of the earthly merry-go-round swiftly and steadily like we always do. Yet, something made 2024 feel like time was traveling at 2.5x the usual pace. Is this what they mean by saying “The older you get the faster life goes”?

Lots, LOTS, has happened over the past 12 months. Amongst the most memorable things, I sold my apartment and moved out of Milan for good, relocated my Italian base to Palermo—retracing my dad’s footsteps but backward—and participated in the final game at EURO2024 with my friend Sam because our business systemarosa caught the eyes of the brand with the three stripes.

I could certainly jump on the end-of-year reflections bandwagon and list ALL of my accomplishments, however, as I frantically type on the keyboard of my laptop three hours before my flight back to Italy from New York, I want to focus on the things I failed to achieve in 2024. Not to be a killjoy or party pooper or a contrarian who wants to stand out from the crowd, but rather because I get to celebrate my wins plenty and study my losses rarely.

In most parts of the world and societies, failure gets a bad rep. And I get it, failure is a powerful thing. It can throw people into a deep depression; the shame spawned by flopping sticks like a freshly spat, wet piece of gum to shoes with a corrugated sole. It’s a kind of despair that’s hard to bounce back from, it often feels like having fallen into a dark reservoir and being knee-deep in putrid water at dusk, when the farmer is gone and the sun is setting. Or at least that is what failing to achieve my pre-set goals used to feel like for me just a few years ago, whenever I looked back at all of the projects I left unfinished or undone. But one thing that dawned on me when I started actually to get shit done is that failure is a very important event.

Without failure, we wouldn’t be able to critically look at our performance, learn and advance, tweak, and iterate until we land our desired outcome. Without failure, there would be no success. We’d be stuck thinking everything we do is perfect and we’d probably become insufferable individuals whose comfort zone is too warm and cozy to ever leave, and that’s never good.

Failing means we had the courage to try. And guess what? Without trying, we would never be able to achieve anything remotely fulfilling. We’d turn into soulless zombies moving through life at a tempo that’s dictated by someone else. To succeed, we need to get our hands dirty. We need to metaphorically get it out of the mud—as the kids say—and be a little goofy. A project will rarely be excellent from the start; few are overnight hits—and most of them are flukes (or get heavy investment and a big runway).

Nessuno nasce imparato, we say in Italy, which means nobody is born knowing it all. And even when you have studied hard to know it all, you will never be prepared enough for the avalanche of *beep* that’s just around the corner. 

Now that I got the prophetic and somewhat moralistic part out of the way, let’s look at all the finish lines I never reached, but that are still waiting to see me arrive: 

1. MY FATHER’S BIOGRAPHY
   
   In 2023 I set out to monetize this newsletter while writing my father’s biography in public. It did not work out as well as I had imagined. Not only was I not able to go further than maybe one chapter, but I also failed to continue recording and archiving his accounts and stories. Perhaps I got busy with other stuff, but I refuse to find an excuse. The fault is 100% mine. Since I had already turned on the paid subscription option and some people did pay to read what I was writing, you can only imagine how dead I felt inside when I realized I could not keep up with the commitment. Yet, I decided to set the dread aside and move on, knowing one day (hopefully soon) I will get back to it and it will be the most important writing of my life. 
   

2. PUBLISH A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS 
   
   I really wanted to turn my essays into a series of published booklets called Things I Thought About Vol.1 (and then 2,3,4..etc. You get the gist), but just like above, something—mostly myself—hindered me from achieving this. Maybe I was not ready for it, but I did have a full concept of what these little books would look like and it wasn’t something unattainable. I guess I will try again in 2025. 
   

3. FULLY LAUNCH NONSENSE PROJECTS

   Nonsense Projects is a very hybrid and abstract creative studio and project that I—alongside my collaborators—have been working hard on. We have an editorial side which is mainly my baby and what kept me away from writing other material, and a more experimental part that is a blend of the work we do for clients and the endeavors we put forward ourselves (eg. RISERVE). While the core part of the business is up and running as a B2B service, we have failed to finalize the website due to some technical issues and building delays. I was very hard on myself and my co-founder/technologist for the extreme respite but as I was writing this reflection, I realized it was maybe for the better. Personally, it was my first year as a business owner (2x) and let’s just say I had a lot to learn. Let’s go!
   

4. KEEP A CONSISTENT WORKOUT ROUTINE

   I had started the year with a bang by running every day on the Palermo waterfront and doing some strength training, but I let work, traveling and a minor knee injury (nothing serious) slow me down and make me lazy. I will not make any new year resolutions but I definitely want to focus on getting stronger in 2025. I read that building strong muscles is what keeps you from becoming an old hag full of bodily pain and I want to travel the world and be active until I am well into my 90s—warranted I can make it there.
   

5. MAKE AND SAVE MORE MONEY + INVEST

   
   To say I am doing badly financially would be a lie and delusion but compared to the previous years, 2024 was quite dry workwise. I made enough but not as much as I would have liked to. With the sale of my apartment, I earned quite a chunk but I had to dip into the proceeds way more than I had planned. As a result, I often felt very irresponsible. It’s not that was buying luxury goods or getting drunk off Dom Pèrignon every night while taking caviar bumps with the newly acquired lump sum, I was using the cash for items I needed to survive like groceries, rent, and other similar supplies. Yet, at the age of 33, it felt silly. I did have to remind myself that it’s more common for people to sell their home because they can’t afford to keep it multiple times since I let go of mine BY CHOICE. My (uncalled-for) financial anxiety remains, but I learned to count my blessings and look forward to the brighter times that are ahead of me.
   

6. READ MORE INSTEAD OF BEING ONLINE 

   
   Obviously, I love to read and I do think I read quite consistently. However, let’s just say I let social media fill my downtime more than it should have. If, on average, I used to read one book a month, in 2024 I read maybe one every two…or less. That is pretty bad. Maybe I should join a book club.
   

7. SPEND MORE TIME WITH MY NIECE & GRANDMA

   
   I spent plenty of time with my parents since moving to Palermo and parking myself at their home for the summer, but I failed to visit my sister and her family in the North of Italy more than 2 or 3 times. This makes me particularly sad since I have the cutest little niece and I want her to know me for being the cool aunt, not the aunt that never visits. The same goes for my grandmother. Although she’s a particularly vibrant elderly lady, she is now 86 and I don’t know how much time together we have left. My other grandma died in 2020 and, unfortunately, I hadn’t seen her or talked to her in a year when she passed due to various negative family circumstances. That left a devastating void in my life and a hole that has yet to heal. Thinking of my beautiful Sicilian nonna, especially now that I live so close to her old house, makes me tear up and puts me in a somber mood.
   

…and the list goes on.

I had other goals and ambitions for my businesses and projects but work is not all there is to life. Besides, I cannot let you in on ALL of my secrets and dirty laundry. I do have a reputation to upkeep!

Happy New Year folks. In 2025, let’s produce more literature and less crap.

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PS: I had no time for editing, so bare with any errors.