Most of us have experienced a lot of failures. Probably we feel bad about those. Most of us have some sort of perfectionist tendency. Probably we feel this is a good thing, since it spurs us toward success.
But maybe we should look upon ourselves differently, viewing failure more positively than perfectionism.
Here's excerpts from Oliver Burkeman's book, "The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking." Dome is a reference to the failed Millennium Dome, built as a monument to the dawn of the year 2000.
There is an openness and honesty in failure, a down-to-earth confrontation with reality that is lacking at the higher altitudes of success.
To achieve something impressive -- as might have happened had the dome ever become, as Tony Blair predicted, 'a beacon to the world' -- is necessarily to erect a kind of barrier between yourself and everyone else. To be impressed by something, meanwhile, implies feeling yourself to be in the presence of something different from, and better than, yourself.
Failure, by contrast, collapses these boundaries, demonstrating the fallibility of those who might otherwise try to present themselves as immune to defeat. It cuts people down to human size. The vulnerability revealed by failure can nurture empathy and communality.
...Still it can be exceptionally hard to adopt this attitude towards your own failures. As Christopher Kayes' notion of 'goalodicy' suggests, we too often make our goals into parts of our identities, so that failure becomes an attack on how we are.
Or, as Albert Ellis understood, we alight upon some desired outcome -- being happily married, for example, or finding fulfilling work -- and elevate it into one we feel we must attain, so that failing at it becomes not just sad but catastrophic. To use the Buddhist language of attachment and non-attachment, we become attached to success.
All these counterproductive ways of thinking about failure manifest themselves most acutely in the phenomenon of perfectionism.
This is one of those traits that many people seem secretly, or not so secretly, proud to possess, since it hardly seems like a character flaw -- yet perfectionism, at bottom, is a fear-driven striving to avoid the experience of failure at all costs. At its extremes, it is an exhausting and permanently stressful way to live.
(There is a greater correlation between perfectionism and suicide, research suggests, than between feelings of hopelessness and suicide.)
To fully embrace the experience of failure, not merely to tolerate it as a stepping-stone to success, is to abandon this constant straining never to put a foot wrong. It is to relax.
'Downfall', writes the American Zen Buddhist Natalie Goldberg, 'brings us to the ground, facing the nitty-gritty, things as they are with no glitter. Success cannot last forever. Everyone's time runs out.' She goes on: 'Achievement solidifies us. Believing we are invincible, we want more and more.'
To see and feel things as they really are, 'we have to crash. Only then can we drop through to a more authentic self. Zen transmits its legacy from this deeper place. It is a different kind of failure: the Great Failure, a boundless surrender. Nothing to hold on to, and nothing to lose.'
...Her [J.K. Rowling] words chime with many of the insights of the Stoics, the Buddhists, and others into the benefits of negativity, and they are worth quoting at length:
I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale.
An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless.
The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure that I knew.
Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea there was going to be what the press has since represented as a fairytale resolution.
I had no idea how far the tunnel extended... so why do I talk about the benefits of failure?
Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.
... I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive. [Failure] gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.
...Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.
Excellent! Beautiful!
"Success is going from one failure to the next with no loss of enthusiasm."
Winston Churchill
Posted by: Spence Tepper | September 16, 2020 at 07:46 PM
Samuel Beckett quote that goes “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.
Stephen Hawking
Posted by: Jen | September 17, 2020 at 04:37 PM
Yes this is true Wisdom..
Not to be frightened ..
Just do..just go..!!
Posted by: s* | September 17, 2020 at 10:09 PM
Love this book. Glad to see you’re still writing about it.
“All these counterproductive ways of thinking about failure manifest themselves most acutely in the phenomenon of perfectionism.
This is one of those traits that many people seem secretly, or not so secretly, proud to possess, since it hardly seems like a character flaw -- yet perfectionism, at bottom, is a fear-driven striving to avoid the experience of failure at all costs. At its extremes, it is an exhausting and permanently stressful way to live.
(There is a greater correlation between perfectionism and suicide, research suggests, than between feelings of hopelessness and suicide.)“
And the values we’ve adopted that as individuals we believe to be perfect aren’t necessarily perfect by definition for another. One person might desire wealth and a luxurious lifestyle which would symbolize perfection for them. Whereas another individual might view perfection as living more modestly with an emphasis on saving the environment. Each of these have their own ideas about what perfectionism is. It’s really the “ism” that gets people though. It’s pretty egocentric when you think about it. A way of making ourselves feel better about ourselves and in most cases this particular “ism” is a desire to impress if we’re being honest. But that’s digging deep.
Princess Diana, one of my all-time favorite people for a number of reasons, was plagued with perfectionism and a lifelong struggle with depression which led her to nearly a dozen suicide attempts. I like her because I empathize with her so much. My life isn’t anything like hers but I totally get the perfectionist thing and how destructive it is. It’s like a combination of I’m not good enough but I’m not going to be happy until I’m the best at this or that thing (depending on your value system).
Posted by: Sonia | September 17, 2020 at 11:00 PM
This is so apropos. I got 100% on a paper I turned in earlier this week. Then my teacher went back and lowered my grade for not citing a source for information that I thought was common knowledge. Anyway, it annoyed me to the point that I looked up all of her credentials and thought who grades a paper and then goes back to regrade it? Then because the paper was peer assessed as well, I went through the list of students in my class to see who might have complained that I didn’t cite a source. And finally I emailed my instructor about her decision to lower my grade after she had already posted my score. After about an hour of this I realized I’m totally psycho—stalking my classmates’ and teacher’s profiles because I didn’t get the A+ I thought I earned. Now, I’ll probably get a few more points knocked off after my instructor reads my email. 😂 I wasn’t disrespectful but I’m sure she’s going to think I’m obnoxious. What a waste of time getting so worked up over one grade. Perfectionism makes like unnecessarily stressful.
Posted by: Sonia | September 18, 2020 at 01:09 PM
Thanks for advice
Posted by: Ayub Ansary | September 19, 2020 at 10:18 PM
Kenneth Wapnick has a totally different approach to the Course (as all people do). I like this one statement he made, “If you continue to focus on becoming perfect you are only reinforcing to yourself that you are imperfect.”
Posted by: Sonia | September 20, 2020 at 11:44 PM
@ Sonia
>>If you continue to focus on becoming perfect you are only reinforcing to yourself that you are imperfect.”<<
The whole idea that people can and should change "for the better" is wrong i.m.o.
We can and have to learn the rules of the many games we have to play in given society. We have to adapt to the cultural environment we grow up and live in, in order to move freely in the public space .. the places we share with other human beings.
We are not born to be the brother or sister of this or that other human being, nor their father or mother, or any other role we have to play in the family-game ... but ... as we have to play those roles, we better make the best of it, in order to remain free.
As natural beings we are born free an as we are .... there is nothing to be changed. The creator, if there is one, says in the bible ..."and .saw that it was good ".
have look at a crow .... one might not like the bird, for its sound, its color or whatever ...but ... is there something wrong with the bird, something in for a change?? Is it not good .. as it is??
Humans, like the crow are not different .... they are good as they are.
The idea that they can and should change for the better, whatever that might be "better", has created much misery ... just go through the history books.
Gardners, people with green fingers, do their best to understand the different plants the look after .. in terms of their needs to develop and bloom. That same attitude in dealing with others, in relationships would humans also flourish as they are and help them feel good with themselves and with others.
We are all born with a song, a song to be heard by others. In order to do so we have to learn to sing according the rules of the society we are born in and live in. Most of the time of our life is invested in learning how to sing the song properly according the rules, we have to learn a language, learn many concepts at home, schools and specialized educations. Most are so busy in mastering these concepts and using them that they completely forget that they had to sing a song, a song they and they alone were born with and many will die without ever having sung that song.
We can and we have to change the cultural clothes we wear if necessary... with that type of change nothing is wrong. but we cannot change as we are born as natural beings ... beings like the crow, the trees etc. ... have a silent look at them then you will know that they are good as they are and so is everything in nature ... we too.
Posted by: Um | September 21, 2020 at 01:37 AM
@um
Nicely put!
Of course, there are many levels of thinking but for let’s just say they boil down to metaphysical and practical. On one level there are all sorts of Zen-like teachings and esoteric Sant Mat ideas which are Real. However, we live in the practical world and those mystical sayings usually aren’t literal. They have to be understood and broken down to a user friendly level.
So we can share all sorts of beautiful platitudes all day long but they won’t help anyone if they’re not understood on a practical level.
Posted by: Sonia | September 21, 2020 at 11:24 AM
@ Sonia
There is nothing to understand really.
MCS in answer to somebody asking for an advice how to stop smoking after having done that several times in vain was: .... Well just don do it.
And he is right as I did it there and then and never smoked ever since.
But ... you are right ... otherwise they are just platitudes and should I consider to stop writing them.
Posted by: um | September 21, 2020 at 11:54 AM
Sonia: "So we can share all sorts of beautiful platitudes all day long but they won’t help anyone if they’re not understood on a practical level."
.................
We are all different in so many ways. This is what I relate to...
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart." -- Helen Keller.
"Emotion and consciousness are the things that make humans different from other animals. Without feelings, there is no point in being a human."
Posted by: Jen | September 21, 2020 at 04:22 PM
@Jen,
I really like that quote from Helen Keller. Yes, definitely we are all different. I don't expect anyone to fully understand or blindly accept anything I say or write. I don't understand half of it myself. ;)
I was horrified to find out that scientists long believed animals didn't have emotions and that in more recent years through "rigorous scientific research" they were able to determine that animals do in fact have emotions/feelings. Wow. (insert rolling eyes emoji about 5 times here).
Just watch the dodo channel on YouTube. Whenever I need a warm fuzzy feeling I like to watch dodo videos. And since there is a lot of unnecessary stress in my household (three generations of people with COMPLETELY different personalities, beliefs and objectives) it's nice to stop thinking several times a day and just smile.
Posted by: Sonia | September 21, 2020 at 04:52 PM