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Coping with failure.

11:42 / 19.11.01

There as many ways to deal with failure as there are ways of celebrating success. How do you deal with everyday failure? Does anybody have any particular coping strategies? I'm not talking about rejection from someone or something else, I'm talking about a failure to live up to a concrete standard. A proof that you aren't good enough to pass a certain marker. An inability to do what you want.
I'm talking Gazza crying at Italia 90. I'm talking Keano shrugging it off in the Champions League semi final. I am talking in sad football references, which might not be entirely appropriate.

Ganesh

19:18 / 19.11.01

Well, this thread's fucking crap, innit?

When 'blocked' in such a way, Buk, I usually react initially with shock (and yeah, I've been known to shed a Gazza-esque tear or two of frustration) but quickly move into 'fox and grapes' mode, convincing myself and those around me that X was a shit option anyway, and Y is what I'm concentrating upon from now on.

You?

19:27 / 19.11.01

I get right back up and do the thing that can't be done. And, I can't do it. So I do it again and I still can't. Then I flail about for a bit trying to find the other thing I could do which would be as good and would be doable if I knew what it was, but I don't, so I fall over.

This accompanied by noises of exertion, crossness or frustration, emotional or physical as appropriate.

Eventually I go 'Fuck it', smoke a bowl or do some healing, and it gets better. I fix what I can and let go of what I can't. Then I start over with what's left.

I'm starting to believe that my life is a series of setbacks from which I learn, and the learning is why I'm here. Oh, and the good stuff that happens prior to hitting the wall. Which eventually I will learn not to do. Hopefully.

autopilot disengaged

20:57 / 19.11.01

tried before. failed before. no matter.
try again. fail again. fail better.
- samuel beckett.

no one can stop me if i refuse to stop.
- me.

23:41 / 19.11.01

You mean like wanting to be a writer since the age of nine, and having almost all the tools needed, but as time goes on seemingly missing something critical... and one day going into the bathroom and looking coldly at self in mirror and saying, "I guess I'm not going to make it." And shedding a little tear because that's been your whole identity up to this point?

Which is nothing compared to two weeks later, when you fail your final stupid test to complete basic ice skating... and then, it hits. And you stay up the entire night actually howling with grief.

Well I'll say one thing for it, I'm pretty much not scared of anything any more.

04:09 / 20.11.01

Well personally I tend to descend into comfort food and cut myself off for a bit from everyone else. Not sure that is an entirely good thing. Oh, and I am often very tempted to lie to people who would never know the truth anyway.
I think the Bonnie Prince Charlie method that a couple of you have mentioned seems like the smartest option. It can be disheartening though can't it.

16:46 / 20.11.01

when i do not succeed at something that i want to acoumplish i first try to examin why i failed the first time to see if there is anything i could do better.

I also look for alternative ways to produce the desired results or alternative courses of action that might produce results that are as close as possible to my original intention.

02:19 / 21.11.01

It's kind of strange, reading this topic. If I think back on the worst time(s) of my life, I realize that none of it really had to do with failure. Most of my moods seem pretty internal to me, being slightly influenced by the world around me.

But the kind of failures that would really be major for me: letting down my friends or family. Something like being responsible for their deaths, or spouse, or something like that. How would I ever cope with that, I wonder? All I could do would be to recognise that things COULD be worse, and WILL be worse if I just clam up and pretend to be dead.

I try to control the horrible chemicals that might flow through my body telling me I'm depressed.

07:58 / 21.11.01

quote:I try to control the horrible chemicals that might flow through my body telling me I'm depressed.

but, how do you do personally do that? Is it all down to chemicals?
I wonder if some ways of dealing with failure are healthier than others. Are some ways better than others? Has anybody witnessed any extreme reactions to failure?
I mentioned in a different thread that pretty much all of my personal successes and failures in life seem to be just a repetition of the same pattern in different environments. How can you deal with limitations outwith your control?

07:58 / 21.11.01

SFD : So you are trying to block out perceived failure with perceived success?

10:02 / 21.11.01

Well sometimes failure is a good thing, I've been so caught up it trying to do something sometimes that the idea that its not worth the effort or that I won't like what I've got when I've 'succeeded' simply never occurs.
I've hit bottom once or twice and in my case, god was it necessary to sort out what the fuck I wanted to do with myself. Rather than living up to other peoples expectations.
Live and learn, still learning that lesson :-)

10:16 / 21.11.01

buk - deleted my original post as it was too much like self-pitying bullshit and i didn't know how best to re-write it.

as to your question: fact: i am a good writer. i can look at what i've written and see it. fact: i am not good at relationships. i can look at the string of failures in the last decade, understand why, and know that this is not fixable.

it's not blocking, it's balancing. one very bad thing about myself with one very good thing.

11:47 / 21.11.01

Balancing seems like a much more adult way to approach a problem than blocking is. They could easily be confused though.

22:18 / 21.11.01

shit, reading some of these posts makes me want to give you each a big, futile-but-sincere *hug*

heres the thing: I have spent way too much time pitying myself. it wasnt that long ago that I realized "hey, Im not good at anything". I honestly have no real talents, passions, or goals. Im merely ok-looking, smart enough to know Im not smart enough, what I was born to do - draw - and what I want to do - photography - I suck at. none of this is false modesty or anything so dull, simply the truth. so back to the self-pity thing - do I wallow in it, or do I go on with my life and try to make it the best one I can?

guess which one I picked!

01

22:38 / 21.11.01

I used to feel like this, but in honesty it's all just horseshit. It's only failure if you quit and decide it to be failure, otherwise it's just another hurdle, or stepping stone or <insert cliche here>.
Initiation never ends.

I don't know who Gazza is, but look at guys like Ray Bourque in hockey, who in his late 30's won his first Stanley Cup. He was one of the greats in the game for 20 years.
How about Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. Two ace veterans in their late 30's who one their first World Series this year. Against the fucking Yankees no less. Look at the masters of the martial arts. They're all eighty plus. Ancient and leading their discipline. There is no checkmate.

02:57 / 22.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Buk:
but, how do you do personally do that? Is it all down to chemicals?

It's kind of like this. Can you make yourself depressed right now? Try to do it without thinking depresing thoughts. Just make yourself depressed. Can you do that? I can, without much difficulty. So I can recognize it. So, when I recognize this process carrying on in my body, I try to stop myself from doing it. It sometimes helps to focus my thoughts in some kind of prayer or meditation. But, in the end, all I'm really doing is discouraging my body from releasing those self destructive chemicals. It really feels like direct intervention to me. I can't say how, exactly. It feels like I simply do it.

20:30 / 23.11.01

Coming from the I-refute-you-thus school of ontology as I do, and having myself been kicked in the pants fairly hard, I do think that failure is real and that it cannot be rationalized out of existence. For me, the best way to cope with failure has been to experience failure, first of all, then to recognize it, because to name something is a way to own that thing. And if you own your failure, it doesn’t own you at least.

What failure has done for me is shut up that little voice nervously mumbling over and over in my head what if I fail, what if I fail, what if I fail because now I can answer back I did fail, I failed big-time & it sucked big-time. Fast-forward: life goes on. And life’s not grey on the other side of failure, it’s as full of color as before... life doesn’t care about your failure, which actually is a little depressing realization that you also have to get through.

You get to the other side, and you feel ...pretty fucking strong. I’m actually more reckless now than I used to be, because if the worst that can happen is that I fail, well, I’ve already failed at the one thing that I thought was the most important thing in my life, the thing that I thought was my life, and my life didn’t end. And with that, BANZAI!!!!!

Mordant Carnival

09:01 / 24.11.01

"If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing badly"- my Mum.

"If a thing's worth doing, it's worth completely fucking up"- me.

17:02 / 18.12.01

Observing repeated personal failure makes me feel like the lead from "The Man who wasn't There". Detached by nature watching important things slip away. Resigned to the limitations of life.