@engineer,
"You can fail; you can fail spectacularly or with a whimper, but you can definitely fail and if you want to fail, all you have to do is not recognize the possibility."
You - as an individual living being from the time you're born to the time you die - cannot fail. Failure is an idea you can have while you're alive, but it ultimately doesn't exist.
"Failing to participate is selfish. Expecting everyone else to hold up the conversation for your benefit is selfish. Failing to share of yourself is selfish."
Those who started the conversation are the selfish ones, and then get even more selfish when they expect the one minding it's own business to jump in.
"Live life to the fullest, get caught up, get passionate, dream about the future then work to make your dreams come true. It's the only thing worth doing."
The time you spent "dreaming about the future" is all you were in that moment, a thought. A thought on a possiblility in another moment. What happens from THAT moment to the moment you were dreaming about is still uncertain. The only thing worth doing, is exactly what you're doing. Otherwise you wouldn't be doing it.
"Doesn't really work for me."
Moment of confusion. Hate those.