(By: Tyler Raiman - 006)
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In all of our daily lives, we fail. We fail when we drop something onto the ground. We fail when we forget to buy something at the grocery store. We fail when we think negatively of ourselves. However, what many of us forget to realize after all of these failures is that we never give up on ourselves. After these hundreds of small mistakes we make, we still go to sleep and wake up the next day, ready for any challenge life might throw our way.
The only time we can actually fail is if we give up. As long as you are on this earth, you have something about yourself that you can improve on. Whether that be your body, mindset, or relationships, no matter how old or young, you still have time to make a difference. Actor Denzel Washington said, “To get something you never had, you must do something you never did.”
As humans, we must take risks and step out of our comfort zones because we will constantly live in a state of convenience and comfort without it. Motivational speaker David Goggins said in his book "Can't Hurt Me," “You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft that you will die without ever realizing your true potential."
(Denzel Washington speaking at a college graduation)
(David Goggins running an ultra marathon called Badwater 135 through Death Valley, California)
To give some examples of people who took risks and stepped out of their comfort zones:
Famous baseball player Reggie Jackson struck out 2,597 times throughout his career. However, we do not remember him for his strikeouts but as one of the greatest baseball players ever to live. Someone who earned 5 World Series titles, hit 563 home runs, and led his team to many victories throughout his career. Reggie Jackson is a perfect example of someone who took risks as a black baseball player, stepped out of his comfort zone, and knew his strikeouts, yet never gave up due to these various factors.
(Reggie Jackson)
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Rosa Parks, an activist for the Civil Rights Movement, was criticized, shunned, and jailed for fighting for what she believed in: equal rights for all. She went against the grain, refused to give up her seat on that Montgomery, Alabama, bus, and sparked a movement that changed many black people’s lives across the country. However, we do not remember Rosa Parks for these failures and setbacks that others imposed on her. We remember her as “the mother of the civil rights movement.” An influential human who will forever be in the history books because of her desire to step out of her comfort zone and take a risk that everybody else was too scared to take. She never gave up.
(Rosa Parks on a bus)
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And famous inventor Thomas Edison, who reportedly failed 1,000 experiments before the 1,001st, invented the lightbulb. Edison was faced with failure after failure trying to find the right materials, trying to make the proper electrical system, and the competition from other inventors trying to beat him. Throughout all of these failures, however, Edison learned from his failures and never gave up. Today, we do not remember him as a failure but as one of the greatest inventors ever. Edison had a significant quote that relates to today’s topic regarding failure. He said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” He never defined himself by his failures, and most importantly, never gave up.
(Thomas Edison holding a lightbulb)
In society today, failure is often stigmatized. Many people get criticized for trying something that doesn’t work. We are held to society's standard to be perfect. Because of this, we are often afraid to begin. Social media gives us the idea that everyone always succeeds, except you, is winning at life.
People post their abundance of money, shiny cars, massive houses, and lavish vacations, yet never show the work it took to reach that point. They never show the stress, the hard nights, the setbacks, the self-doubt, and most importantly, the failures. Because along every path, there will be failures. You need to start somewhere instead of nowhere and try something. Denzel Washington said, "Dreams without goals are just dreams… Without commitment, you will never start, but without consistency, you will never finish."
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Now that we have established what it means to fail, I want to highlight the history of the word failure. In Kieren Setiya’s book, “Life is Hard,” he writes that the word failure was introduced in the mid-1800s. Conveniently enough, industrialization, urbanization, and the rise of big businesses were all coming together during this time. Many people around the United States were failing not only due to their physically demanding jobs, unlivable wages, and flawed social conditions, but also because they could not see a positive direction in their lives. In the 1920s, consumerism was no longer an idea of the past but a symbol of middle-class wealth and prosperity.
Americans were beginning to define themselves based on their credit scores, income, and how much was in their bank balance. Former slave, Frederick Douglass, said the only way people defined success was by “WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK.” (p. 114)
Today, one more element was added to the list of everything I had discussed: social media. “How good can you make yourself look” for someone else's feed has had a monumental impact on children, teens, and even some adults in the modern age. Showing how, on top of the economic-centric society we live in today, even more pressure is being added on people every generation
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Setiya says in a quote:
“If we remembered even a fraction of our million tiny plans, our whole lives would be regret at their failure.” p. 92
This quote couldn’t be more accurate. How many plans have you created for yourself or others that do not work out or have failed? Probably many of these, however, you don’t define yourself based on these failures, and instead, continue forward with your life.
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So this begs the question, then. How should we live our lives?
Well, we should not live our lives like it is supposed to be a linear series of events with an exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. This just isn’t realistic and will set us up for failure.
Setiya highlights a concept by Aristotle that involves two different types of activities: Telic and Atelic.
Telic activities are those with a definitive beginning and end goal, like walking from one place to another, marriage, and having kids; they all eventually end.
However, atelic activities, including walking, thinking, and talking, can continue forever.
In modern society, humans are so focused on telic activities with a goal that they forget to embrace the process and just want to get to the end.
We set these goals we know we can attain, achieve them, have a feeling of happiness for a couple of minutes, maybe hours, and then… well, nothing. Satisfaction is either in the future or in the past with telic activities.
Atelic activities allow you to learn and value the process, but most importantly, how to live in the present. You are no longer searching for an end goal because the goal is the process. It gives you a new perspective on life and allows you more grace and room for error.
What About Some Other Philosophers in History Who Also Have Input on Failure?
Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome, in his Meditations, wrote, “Observe, in short, how transient and trivial is all mortal life; yesterday a drop of semen, tomorrow a handful of spice and ashes…” (p.101)
In this quote, Marcus highlights how life is too short to get hung up on minor failures. We start from practically nothing, and in the end, we turn into nothing. In his book, Setiya says, “No one’s life can be reduced to one event, no enterprise, or one ambition.” (p. 94) What defines us is how we choose to move forward and use the time we have left.
Another prominent philosopher is Socrates. Socrates said, “Falling down is not a failure. Failure comes when you stay where you have fallen.” Socrates was mocked, put on trial, and ultimately sentenced to death. Yet he held firm to his beliefs, never allowing society’s judgment to shake what he regarded as meaningful to him.
And finally, the last philosopher whom we can look to when we are feeling defeated is Zeno of Citium.
Zeno grew up in a wealthy merchant family and had everything he could have wanted. However, he was involved in a terrible shipwreck and unfortunately lost all of his money and clothes he owned. Instead of giving up, Zeno moved to Athens, where he began to learn about philosophy under his mentor Crates of Thebes. Through this process, he discovered that his now lost physical money did not equate to happiness. Zeno said, “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” Zeno was able to turn a bad situation into a positive one and find value in working through the process, never consumed by the goal.
Conclusion
Everyone will fail at something. It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when. But when you fail, remember that these failures should not be the defining characteristics of your life. Always get back up, find your purpose, and find joy in the hardships of life.
Your life will not be a linear path; there will be moments where you feel great for a while and other times where you feel absolutely terrible. The point is always to keep your head up and focus on what you must do in the present, not the future.
And finally, don’t overvalue your monetary possessions. They’re called “monetary” for a reason. “You will never see a U-Haul behind a hearse.” -Denzel Washington, and because of that, work towards goals that will benefit your thinking and mind. Do atelic activities that might not yield a reward but help you develop an indomitable perspective on life.
Ultimately, we are not remembered for the times we got everything right, but for the courage we showed when everything went wrong.
So keep failing and never give up
Discussion questions:
1. Knowing that failure is often the way to success, is it okay to purposely let someone fail if we can help them succeed?
2. When people fail in a society (poverty, imprisonment, etc.), is it their personal or societal failure?
3. Does political idealism inevitably lead to failure because of human nature?
For the first question, I believe that we must all struggle some way to appreciate the good in life, but it’s good to remember that you can also appreciate the good in life from someone else. If everyone stopped helping people because we expect them to grow from it, I feel like there would actually be less happiness in the world. Many people get through hard times because they have someone that they know believes in them. They don’t have to hold your hand throughout the thing the help, but even simple tips and support goes a long way. It could even push them to being better people from that example.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete2. When people fail in a society (poverty, imprisonment, etc.), is it their personal or societal failure
I feel like this has a lot to do with a sociology standpoint of how things work. People cannot control where they grew up, or how and by who they were raised by, so I’d say it’s a societal issue, rather than a personal one. If a poor boy grew up in a poor neighborhood, he’d go to a poor school with low funding, with low funding he cannot get good education and no one takes school seriously. So, with a low education he cannot get a better job, and with negativity all around him, it’s harder to surround yourself with good influences, which will impact his future negatively. If it’s a poor neighborhood, it can be easier to convince people to do things to get some sort of profit, even if it’s dangerous or illegal. So, we want to ask the question, why is he in this situation from the moment he was born? If there is a lack of care from society about people in his position, there is no surprise when he doesn’t get the deserved rights and ends up going down an unfortunate road. Yes, there are obviously exceptions, but that is for people with different choices or attitudes, and it’s hard to get out of a position where you feel like there’s no hope.
3. Does political idealism inevitably lead to failure because of human nature?
ReplyDeleteI believe so because humans will always be greedy by definition. Even if there is the best policies available, or an amazing form of government, it will eventually break apart due to greed for power and riches. We can look at how things are now for example. With just a few months, the government has broken down into a meaningless pile of words and laws. It has proved to us that if someone is greedy enough, they will destroy everything that was, even if the government was perfect. That is why they say that all empires eventually fall, because eventually someone with unconcealed greed will destroy it all.
1. Knowing that failure is often the way to success, is it okay to purposely let someone fail if we can help them succeed?
ReplyDeleteAns: Depending on the individual. Some people are less likely to listen to advice therefore letting them fail to succeed is necessary however, if it is avoidable giving someone advice should be better than letting them do something that would clearly be unsuccessful.
2. When people fail in a society (poverty, imprisonment, etc.), is it their personal or societal failure?
Ans: This is also situation dependent. Some countries are impoverished due to internal factors while others are impoverished due to eternal factors. Depending on the situation a nation is in it can be either personal or societal.
3. Does political idealism inevitably lead to failure because of human nature?
Ans: Yes. People are constantly striving for more even when they reach the goal they initially desired. Very few people learn to be content with what they already received rather than seeking out more.
Good. As WJ said, "our errors [usually] are not such awfully solemn things." So long as we learn from our mistakes, we've not failed.
ReplyDeleteI will say, though, that Reggie (like a lot of players these days) probably swung for the fences a little too often. The lesson for us all there is: when you have two strikes, you need to shorten up a bit on the bat and swing and contain your swing just a bit more. Over-swinging can hurt the team, sometimes a single or a walk is all you need. Every hit doesn't need to be a home run.