The Dirty Secret of Your Mind: Are You a Failure?

And also about fear, barking, and human faces.

The short definition of the word failure is a lack of success. The long definition refers to the list of self-flagellating judgments about our own worth that we ourselves maintain in our heads.

Has anyone ever warned you that a dog may smell your fear and bite you?

Dogs do not possess any superpowers that would allow them to read your emotions. When we perceive threat, we enter the fight-or-flight mode, which makes our body sweat, our muscles stiffen, and our eyes widen. Also, our glands release stress-related hormones, our breathing rate increases, and so forth. Dogs merely detect some of the physiological changes we go through when we’re alarmed.

The sense of smell in humans is not as advanced as that of our canine friends, but we’re still pretty good at spotting even minor modifications in the body language of other people. When you are afraid, people can tell. When you feel like a failure, people see failure. When you have doubts about yourself, others doubt you too.

Our brain knows and understands much more than we consciously realize. Have you ever talked to your partner, simply “knowing” that he or she was lying to you, without being able to explain how exactly you know? Or…