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In Praise of Failure

anticlimatic

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If this is a grammar correction somewhere I'm not seeing where it applies.
I dont know if this is going to make sense. But say a person has lived under a rock their entire life. This is in a large part their entire perspective on the world. Sure, sometimes they get word that there is something better out there, that they can somehow move out from under that rock if they just 'work hard enough' or 'think more positively' or 'think of this as a learning experience'- but the more and more they hear about this amazing other reality- and the more they find themselves incapable- no matter how hard they try- to get out from under the rock... the more defeated that they might feel. They hear of this wonderful 'success' that is just out of their reach- slmething they are told of, but they themselves, in that moment, just cannot lift that rock. Because sometimes, you can fail at something and you just do not have the honest capability to learn from it. If you are constantly slammed with failure, you can try to get back up, but oftentimes you just dont have the chance before something comes to push you down again. I think that the idea of 'failure being a great learning experience' is a good one, in theory. But it just doesnt always reflect the reality for a lot of people, and in some ways- when you hear that messege that 'you can learn from all of this, if you just try hard enough'- well it can kind of be offensive. Because a lot of people, dont have any other choice but to struggle. And when you are struggling and the honest best you can do is just stay afloat- hearing someone say that they choose to put themselves in the line of failure... it just seems dismissive of just how hard it is to constantly- when it isnt your choice- struggle with just how pervasive and unrelenting failure can be. Im not saying you are trying to be offensive. Im just saying, this is a very complex topic. Failure isnt good, it isnt bad- but for some people its not some sort of tool they can use. Sometimes its just a lot more than that.
I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing. Maybe you could use some specific examples, per your "in reality" grounding of what seemed to me to be a more idealistic scenario you described. When I'm talking about failure I'm talking about very specific physical goals- not the realization of something that may or may not exist at all, like an idealized future or a state of feeling.
 

Frosty

Poking the poodle
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If this is a grammar correction somewhere I'm not seeing where it applies.

I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing. Maybe you could use some specific examples, per your "in reality" grounding of what seemed to me to be a more idealistic scenario you described. When I'm talking about failure I'm talking about very specific physical goals- not the realization of something that may or may not exist at all, like an idealized future or a state of feeling.

Im saying that people have different capacities for how they can deal with failure, depending on their level of health, their living situation at that time, ect ect.

Say you are a homeless man. You set a goal to get a job. Every job you apply to you are rejected from. Eventually you get discouraged. You maybe lower your standards after a while. Some might say that its winning- that its 'good' that you figured out that you 'couldnt do it'- but at the same time- if what you were trying for you simply couldnt achieve- well its limiting. Now you KNOW you can do it. You want to be in a situation that you simply- cannot have.

Yes. Life is about adapting. Taking risks. Ones that often-times might lead to failure. And sometimes you can learn from this failure- if you are in the mind-set to be capable of doing so- but other times you arent trying to 'succeed' as much as you are trying NOT to fail. Sometimes you just cant learn from your failures. Sometimes they it is just simply out of your control.

I think thats what it comes down to- whether or not its in your control. Failure that you can decide on your own terms- whether or not you are going to 'risk this or risk that'- I can understand why you would praise it. But failure that follows you, stalks you, finds itself making itself present in every situation you can find yourself in- never letting up- well- that I cannot praise.

But I can praise those people for I suppose winning in that they never give up. That can be harder sometimes- to remain neutral- than it is to surmount something.
 

anticlimatic

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I think thats what it comes down to- whether or not its in your control. Failure that you can decide on your own terms- whether or not you are going to 'risk this or risk that'- I can understand why you would praise it. But failure that follows you, stalks you, finds itself making itself present in every situation you can find yourself in- never letting up- well- that I cannot praise.

But I can praise those people for I suppose winning in that they never give up. That can be harder sometimes- to remain neutral- than it is to surmount something.

Absolutely it pertains to what you can control. There's at least two different concepts at work here that you're describing under the umbrella of failure. One I am familiar with, but the other is new to me. I understand the type of failure that is an impartial product of attempting to execute a goal with improper steps. This type, the trial and error type, always comes with a learning experience because it always adds a series of steps to the non-viable list, thereby inching you closer towards what to do by ever increasing the list of what not to do. If all options are finally spent, and success still hasn't been achieved, you arrive somewhere between success and failure: stalemate. You did your best, and all you could possibly do. The responsibility for its success is out of your hands, and your control.

This perhaps is the other type of failure that you touch upon- the type that "follows you around." Projects attempted that are just too far beyond a persons abilities. But I think these too can be rendered encouraging rather than discouraging (ultimately if not immediately) with the right attitude. Once again, it's just a series of steps one can cross off the viable list. Maybe try injecting some extra steps in there, and going again. If you can't get a job because you have no references or work experience, maybe insert a relationship and volunteering step somewhere in there.
 

Tellenbach

in dreamland
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Oct 27, 2013
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Frosty said:
Say you are a homeless man. You set a goal to get a job. Every job you apply to you are rejected from. Eventually you get discouraged. You maybe lower your standards after a while.

This is sort of like buying a lottery ticket and not winning. If the failure is due to external forces beyond your control and there is nothing to be learned from it, then yeah...it sucks.
 
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