Why when people fail they get sad about it?

Answer 1

Have you ever failed? I find it hard to believe there is anybody on this planet who is able to use the internet but has never failed at anything. I'm not having a go, it just seems an odd question - if you try to do something you obviously believe, on some level, that you will succeed. If you then fail it means your self-assessment was wrong and you are not as good as you thought you were. The mistake a lot of people (including me) make is extrapolating this sense of lower-self-worth-than-previously-thought into other areas of their life e.g. if somebody goes for a job interview, they plainly believe they at least have a chance or they would not try. When they get rejected they think, well, if my self-assessment was wrong in this area, what's to stop it being wrong in other areas? Am I really as good as I think I am? Thus leading to sadness.

I doubt if people actually think those specific words, with me it is more of a 'feeling', but I'm a guy so I don't really pay much attention to that sort of thing.

Let me ask you a question. Why did you ask this question in the first place, did you genuinely not know why people feel sad when they fail?