Why do people set themselves up for failure? Is it the fear of knowing your best may not be enough? The fear that there may be another person out there who will one-up your every move, your every action?
From what I can see, it's definitely not a matter of incapability. In contrast to a recent entry of mine, I believe anything can be accomplished as long as you set your mind to it. Actually, scratch that. The mind is simply not enough to achieve the so-called impossible. The desire to succeed must not come from the mind, but from the heart and soul. Minds can be manipulated, altered and reshaped with false aspirations. False illusions that define the gap between success and failure.
What is success, really? And what's failure? I believe the two must go hand in hand in order to truly appreciate the sweet taste of success.
For example, if you've lived your life making nothing short of A's in school, how gratifying will that next A be? In comparison to the student with the C average who earns the A because of sheer hard work and dedication, the two just don't compare.
So there you have it. To me, success is achieving the goals that require every single ounce of your blood, sweat and tears.
What's failure, then? Have you failed if your life falls short of your expectations? Have you failed if you've dug a hole you can't seem to climb out of?
Neither of those is correct. Failure is not having the desire to climb out of the hole you've dug for yourself. Failure is hitting the bottom and deciding you're just going to lay there and accept your fate.
Without failure, there cannot truly be success.
"There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness." - Carl Jung
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
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2 comments:
Dude, I so believe that whole A and C thing is true. I once heard that students that usually made C's and D's in highschool tend to make more A's in college, then the students that made all A's in highschool. This would be due to the fact that the straight A students would be burnt out by college. I believe that is what has happened to me sadly...
i agree with what you said about success and failure. that in order to truly appreciate success you have to fail-- i think failure is the more essential piece of the pair. like those people who consistently let their grades define them, those conflicts that they deal with i think are what identifies them as a person. that's who you are. you are not your A B or C grade, your race or job, or the person people see you as. you are the product of your own struggles and challenges. if you cannot learn and grow from them you will always be dealing with the same problem in some different form. so i guess what i am saying is accept that you fucked up and don't let it happen again
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