ROSIE - Feeling Failure

I'm writing this in the hour following England's shock (!) defeat in the hands of Germany to knock us out of the world cup. This will bring about a clash of swords with G, but I am not the biggest football fan in the world. I think it's an awful game and the players are overpaid idiots. I think the fact I heard that one of the complained that they were "bored" whilst in South Africa for the World Cup didn't do them any favours in my eye.

However, I appreciate that it really is our national game and that 90% of the population would have been glued to the box at 3pm this beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon.

None of us like to lose, particularly so publicly. None of us like to fail full stop. It's really not a nice feeling to not achieve something you set out to do, and, let's face it, England went to win the World Cup.

However, I was speaking to one of my ladies who used to go to my gym the other day and we were tallking about life in general. She really is very sweet indeed and although I don't know her like a bosom buddy, we have had various chats over the years and I feel she wouldn't mind me mentioning this. We were talking about her job and how she hated it... and how she was desperate to change her career path to become a teacher. A very normal story, she'd been married for 10 years, was 35 or so, both of her kids were at school full time, and she had lots more time on her hands. So, I said, why don't you? And her answer - I don't think I could do it. This woman was SO scared of failure that she didn't want to give her dream a go and pull herself out of a rut. She HATED her job. She worked full time so spent the majority of her waking time there. How awful is that?

Why am I diverting from the football? I suppose what I'm saying is that it's better to TRY to achieve and to fail, pick yourself up with your head high than to live your life the way you DON'T want to.

So, aside from the fact our footballers get paid a gazillion pounds a minute to kick a ball around... at least they TRIED at their dream. I admire that; they did their best, tried their hardest and in the end they weren't good enough. All I can say boys is - hold your heads up high... and better luck next time. Ha! (I'm such a B***H).

And to the rest of you out there who AREN'T trying your dream - I won't be such a b***h. Go for it. At least you tried. Chances are you WILL succeed. After all, you don't get much more competitive than the World Cup....