I don't know how you can go through life not knowing how good it feels to relish a challenge and earn, really earn, reward.  There's times I just want to scream that at people. Holding oneself responsible for both the victories and failures in life can be taken to an unhealthy extreme. But holy shit does taking away the bad there destroy any potential for good as well. A life that doesn't recognize failures as a failure will never push themselves to success in anything either.  The dizzyingly amazing highs and the terrifying lows are life. Without that, might as well just go from birth to death in a medicated haze where nothing ever pushes beyond a feeling of mediocrity.