Last weekend, I tried to surprise my girlfriend with breakfast in bed—pancakes, scrambled eggs, coffee, the whole deal, even warmed the plates like Gordon Ramsay. But our cat had left a rubber toy on the stairs. I stepped on it, slipped, launched the tray, and landed in a syrupy mess with a pancake stuck to my back. Ended up in the ER with a fractured wrist. The nurse didn’t even blink—apparently, this is a thing.

Earlier that week, I told my son “Love you” at daycare drop-off, and one of the teachers, clearly on autopilot, responded, “Love you too.” The look on her face said she wanted to disappear.

Then there was my flight fiasco: left my hotel at 4:30 a.m., dropped my “key card” in the return box—only it wasn’t the key. It was my ID. Realized it at airport security. No ID, no rental car. Spent the morning in rush-hour traffic in a taxi, reevaluating every life choice.

Speaking of regrets, I once sent an email to over 100 people saying “Hey, xyz is wrong!” then followed up with “Actually, xyz was right.” My inbox still judges me.

But not as much as my conscience does for telling a date I was allergic to peanut butter just to avoid a smoothie. Six years later, her whole friend group still believes it. They check ingredients for me. They’ve thrown away cakes. Meanwhile, I eat peanut butter in secret at work and live in fear that my girlfriend will find my stash and discover the lie.

At least I didn’t destroy a whole steakhouse. Unlike my first week as a waiter, when I swapped salt and sugar everywhere. Customers got sweet steaks and salty coffee. My last shift.

Still, nothing beats the shame of sending a job application that said “Please see attached resume” with no resume attached. Then doing it again. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t get the job.

But one moment sticks with me most: leaving a grocery store, a cashier handed me a bag and whispered, “Hurry!” Inside was a note: “You need to stop rushing through life. You’re missing too much.” Oddly enough, it hit home. Because with all these fails… they might just be life telling me to slow down and laugh a little.