"I'm saying we did our best. And We don't respond to failure with depression. We respond by becoming better. until our best is good enough."
—Garovel, The Zombie Knight
I was hobbled. Pain. Slow, labored movements. He cried out to me, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get there fast enough. All I could do was stupidly cry out his name. Useless...
There's no proper phobia for this that I know of. But don't we all have it? The fear of not being fast or smart or strong or relevant enough. The fear of being useless.
Kaladin: If I had accepted these powers sooner, if I hadn't spent so long thinking I was cursed... could I have saved them?
Syl: [quietly] I don't know. Maybe.
Syl: [quietly] I don't know. Maybe.
— The Way of Kings (2010) (first book of The Stormlight Archive)
"If I'd been a better friend... to Aberforth, if I'd been a better brother... he might have confided in me. Perhaps things would have been different, and this boy... could have been part of our lives, part of our family."
— Albus Dumbledore, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore