Comments for Panda's Pajamas http://pandapajamas.wordpress.com "It's only a flesh wound." Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:50:30 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 Comment on “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” by L http://pandapajamas.wordpress.com/2008/06/21/what-would-you-do-if-you-knew-you-could-not-fail/#comment-6 L Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:50:30 +0000 http://pandapajamas.wordpress.com/?p=10#comment-6 If I knew I could not fail, I would take the MCAT. I would try salsa dancing. I would tell people what I really think more often. I wouldn't hesitate to go into crazy debt for the grad program that I'm really interested in. I would flirt with men that I like. I fight my fear of failing every day, but I think that I am learning. Fear and guilt and anxiety plague my life like so many others, but not like they once did. I agree that failures should be viewed as learning experiences, but I think that it is even more important that we realize that things and people have value that is not conditional on accomplishments. I think that the little boy in your example will be most successful if he knows that he is valued regardless of those successes. I think that is what it is to know you cannot fail, to know that if you do you take something away from the experience that you can reference in the future and that your intrinsic value cannot be increased or diminished by failures or accomplishments then nothing is wasted, that these things serve to teach us about ourselves. Basically I think the point is that it is difficult to really try if you are too afraid of failing, so often pressuring people has the opposite of the effect intended. We can only get anywhere from starting where we're at, so perhaps we should be more accepting of ourselves and others as we are today, instead of living in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction with everything, anticipating some future time when things will be like we think they should. I think most of us have had the experience of pursuing something determinedly and finding that it just isn't what we expected, and maybe its the expectation that makes that happen and not any actual lacking. But I think that I have strayed from the original question...thanks for your thoughts. L If I knew I could not fail, I would take the MCAT. I would try salsa dancing. I would tell people what I really think more often. I wouldn’t hesitate to go into crazy debt for the grad program that I’m really interested in. I would flirt with men that I like. I fight my fear of failing every day, but I think that I am learning. Fear and guilt and anxiety plague my life like so many others, but not like they once did. I agree that failures should be viewed as learning experiences, but I think that it is even more important that we realize that things and people have value that is not conditional on accomplishments. I think that the little boy in your example will be most successful if he knows that he is valued regardless of those successes. I think that is what it is to know you cannot fail, to know that if you do you take something away from the experience that you can reference in the future and that your intrinsic value cannot be increased or diminished by failures or accomplishments then nothing is wasted, that these things serve to teach us about ourselves. Basically I think the point is that it is difficult to really try if you are too afraid of failing, so often pressuring people has the opposite of the effect intended. We can only get anywhere from starting where we’re at, so perhaps we should be more accepting of ourselves and others as we are today, instead of living in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction with everything, anticipating some future time when things will be like we think they should. I think most of us have had the experience of pursuing something determinedly and finding that it just isn’t what we expected, and maybe its the expectation that makes that happen and not any actual lacking. But I think that I have strayed from the original question…thanks for your thoughts.

L

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