Embracing failure!

Here's a nice, contraversial critique of our ever increasing win, win, top dog society which is helping to churn out more dissafected, disenfranchised casualties than ever before.

A subtle two finger salute to the 'you can have it all' brigade.


michaelprescott.typepad.com...

[edit on 28-5-2007 by ubermunche]

Interesting Blog to say the least.

I do not subscribe, however, to his particular form of defeatism.

Success is, I believe, a personal thing. The only measure of success is that which we ourselves create....

I would consider my life to be a huge success, while another looking in at my life, may see it differently...

Is not the true joy in the attempt, not the conclusion? How often do we attain some long sought after, lofty goal, only to discover that goal was not really what we expected at all?

Just my .02

Semper

Originally posted by semperfortis
Interesting Blog to say the least.

I do not subscribe, however, to his particular form of defeatism.

Success is, I believe, a personal thing. The only measure of success is that which we ourselves create....

I would consider my life to be a huge success, while another looking in at my life, may see it differently...

This may be how I'm reading it myself but to me this is the fundamental point in his blog, to reject consensus veiws of what success is, often based on superficial perceptions, and base it on your own wants and needs. I don't see it as self defeating (although it is easy to read it that way) more self balancing.

Is not the true joy in the attempt, not the conclusion? How often do we attain some long sought after, lofty goal, only to discover that goal was not really what we expected at all?

Absoutely agree, more often than not it's the challenge that enlivens us.

Interesting though I'm not sure I agree with him totally. To strive to achieve your personal best is a success in and of itself. Even a so called failure isn't one if you learn from it. All of us fail at some point in time but I believe that one is a failure only if you don't learn or you quit trying. Life is about living it to the fullest and not allowing set backs either major or minor to derail you.

Semper I can't believe anyone would consider you a failure. That's almost too funny. From reading your posts and following your debates I believe you to a very well-educated thoughtful person one whom I am proud to call friend.

What the author is saying is that we are wrong to define people and ourselves by success and failure.

I may have failed at many things, perhaps most things, but I am not a failure.

My endeavors may have failed, but I have succeeded in learning invaluable lessons from my endeavors that have made me a person who appreciates both my failures and successes for what each has contributed to me as a whole.

Is it better to succeed than to fail?

It's hard to say. Some of my successes have led to circumstances about which I was very disappointed and, conversely, I have had many failures that after the initial disappointment faded, left me in circumstances that were not at all undesirable.

What the author is describing is a key element in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, in which one learns to avoid distortions of thought that lead to clinical depression.

Rudyard Kipling covered the same issues in his timeless poem: "If."

[excerpt]

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

[emphasis mine]

www.swarthmore.edu...

[edit on 2007/5/29 by GradyPhilpott]