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Failure
Namada
Veteran
You didn’t get the job. You couldn’t raise the money. You missed the deadline. You hired the wrong person.
You didn’t ask for help. You let someone you love down. You failed to plan in advance. You bit off more than you could chew. You forgot something important.
Its always happen something wrong in our life, but how can we learn from failure?
Our reaction to failure can become a circle of hell and things seems to be catastrophic.
"I am a Afraid to try. Or afraid to let people down. Or afraid of what you’ll feel about yourself if things don’t go to plan".
What is your best way to transcend failure and turn it in to something better and healing?
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Comments
It seems to depend on the situation. If its work related I apologize and do my best to fix the problem. If its a personal relationship I beat myself up and figure what's the point in trying anyway... for some reason those wounds are taking a while to heal.
I put things into perspective. I think of Aleppo, then, I give a damn about the trivia.
@federica thats smart and tragic at the same time. Iam often watching documentaries from WW2, auswitch or battle of Stalingrad, my problems and failures are not existing putting it in a context of war.
It's not a question of putting it into context. It's a question of comparison. Things could be so much worse.
I have absolutely nothing to complain about, when I think of the countless things happening NOW, TODAY.
You look at the tragedies of the past. The Present is full enough of tragedies without needing to go back further than yesterday.
You're upright, and whole, aren't you?
You can put one foot in front of the other, can't you?
You have the freedom of choice to be either miserable, or contented.
Choose.
According to Buddhism the First Truth is that such "failures" are inevitable, or as a Dudeist would say, "shit happens". In these terms, the Second Truth would be continually craving for "success".
The Third and Fourth Truths deal with transcendence of the success/failure game.
Awesome question(s), @Namada.
I look back all the time, on my son's and my life and describe it as the world's slowest train wreck. But I used to be brutally unforgiving to myself for my 'failures'. I've been using the good ol' Buddhist mindfulness and wisdom of my sangha here to cope with it and look at it with a whole new perspective that has saved me from myself.
One important thing I've come to more fully realize now, and that thing is, that I'm not entirely to blame - I had plenty of help in 'failing'. Other people are Hell - that's a quote from some play I remember a cyber-friend using it as their signature on another forum.
Realize we're not an island. We had help turning things to sh*t.
Not quite: "Hell is other People" which is mildly, and subtly different.
Jean-Paul Sartre. he was a bundle of laughs, as well....
@Namada, if you indulge, wilfully, in activities that actually give rise to negativity (watching war programmes, reading sombre literature) is it any wonder you entrench your mindset in a Realm of Pessimistic outlook?
Apply again. Volunteer. Self employ. Take up stealing Train. Apply again.
See answer above. Beg, borrow, steal, get sponsorship, Save. Sell grandmother
Fess up. Negotiate new deadline. What is this? How to live?
Fire yourself. etc. etc. etc.
Ah the easy ones ...
Perhaps you can provide answers? I have a volume of life problems supplied from demons on up, all requiring advice ... Please help ...
Things are seen as a failure when things don't go the way one plans...and the failure part is the clinging onto the past....
"Dependent Origination's wheel is constantly turning, things are changing all the time-
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where failures can become successes ,and where reliving one's past .... the only crime!"
.... (from a Buddhist perspective
Absolutely, and that includes the way we were brought up.
Failure only exists relative to a goal. Goals are usually a sign of clinging. If you let go of the goal, failure becomes painless, it is just doing the best you can and sometimes that is not as well as at other times. It is missing those important-seeming goals that you set yourself that cause you to feel badly, and behind the immediate goal is usually hiding a desire, like more status, more physical wealth, emotional fulfilment that is dependent on others.
I acted in that play many moons ago as the main character Garcin, and it's a great line to say. Garcin is stuck in a room ( hell ) with two women, but blame that on Sartre, not me.
I also have an interest in WW2 history, and the sheer scale of suffering invariably puts my own problems into perspective. We take so much for granted.
@federica I do not see war documentaries just for pleasure or pessimism . But Iam curious in history, from what we can learn from it. Everything goes in cycles, because of hatred and greed in humans never disappears.
And now we can again see that the Holocaust could be incurred again in just a new vending.Trump who wants to build a huge wall on the border and make USA to a ghetto, and send 11 million out of the country. Creating discord among the people , in which he creates hatred against a group of people, calling the Mexicans rapist and criminals.
Do we learn anything from our fails and wrong doings, certainly not on a collective level, but on a personal level yes its achievable .
As @Kerome pretty much said, the term "failure" is an attachment to an expectation and the outcome when it's not what we want. give it a try sometime, to do something without an expectation of the outcome/result. That doesn't mean we should never have goals, but we shouldn't have such an attachment to the result of the goal. You can probably look back on a lot of "failures" in your life and realize that something came out of it. Even some of the very worst things have silver linings. They always will. Failures are just an opportunity to learn, if you choose to do so. If all you do is focus on the part you think you failed at, you are only seeing the tip of the iceberg of that experience.
I think it's good to keep perspective in realizing that the problems we think we have aren't really very big when you look at the big picture of the world. BUT continually rejecting or pushing away our problems because others have bigger ones only ensures we never take responsibility for things. We might not be at much risk of dying in a bombing in the middle of the night, but our lives still have challenges that can feel really difficult, and really important to us.
Yes failure is an attachment to an ideal that we create.
I believe that we must be able to accept that things are as they are , failures and wrong doings happens, and we dont need to push them away.
Therefore, I often use the space around me like a little teacher. The room and the air discriminate nothing , everything is allowed . You can breathe it in , breathing out , you can roar and dance, space Accepts everything that comes in its presence.
The mind hold on to things due to our ideals, but space let everything be as it is, everything is welcomed, even failure.
It seems like a cycle. To break cycle we must properly plan our day. Go to sleep early if possible. Wake early. At the time of sleep, first memories what you going to do tomorrow. Do work as per priority. Give priority to necessary and most important work.
All successful people has routine. The very successful people I know wake up very early around 4 or 5 am.
Planning is most important thing while to start any new work. Planning saves time and assures to complete it.
For me many failures eventually became the foundation for success. Of equal help is to accurately identify competencies as well as their lack.
Planning, preparation and anticipating problems are very much a part of practising mindfulness.