Everyone fails. Sadly, everyone fails more often than they succeed. If success were easy, it wouldn't be a goal worthy of attainment. So, let's go! It's just around the corner! A little effort and you've got it! In this blog, I postulate that success isn't hard. I also postulate that when we fail, we fail most often because of inward influences. I postulate, (now I'm just using the word gratuitously) that there is a proven method of success for every endeavor you may wish to pursue. If it can be done, chances are, someone's already done it, right? I'm obviously not speaking absolutely, here! Gee whiz! Cut me some slack. There are things that have never been done....trying to beat world records and such. I mean generally speaking. Most things that you, or anyone, wish to do, have already been done by someone. So, no matter what your goal, no matter what the measure of your success may be, there are things that keep us from that goal. The list, however, contained herein, may not be a complete list. There may be other, personal influences keeping you from success, but it's likely that most or all of the obstacles you face are in this blog somewhere. So, without further narration, as I tend to be long winded....can writing be long winded?....maybe the term is long prose-ded....or expositionous? Now I'm just making up words. The point is...the list of reasons why I have surmised that most people fail:
1. Lack of ability. This is one of the few seemingly external reasons people fail. And even though, upon first glance, it seems like an external reason, it's still internal. Lack of ability. Is the lack of ability really a lack of ability? Or is it a lack of practice? A lack of research? A lack of understanding of what you are trying to succeed at? Have you devoured every scrap of information on the subject? Have you studied the people successful at this same thing and understand how they arrived at success? Success, at any endeavor, requires an understanding of the process it takes to be successful at it. That's why the beginning of this blog, I stated that there is a proven method of success for any endeavor. Obviously, someone has seen success in the same field in which you are striving for success. Learn their story. History can teach you about possible pitfalls, before you have to experience them. Lack of ability, to me, really boils down to lack of knowledge. Make no mistake, though, knowledge of the success of others doesn't mean instant success. There are other factors. Let's explore another one.
2. Lack of effort. You can have an amazing grasp of what it takes to be successful in whatever area you are trying to be successful in. But understanding and education are static. Now, you must act on them. Lack of effort is one of the strongest contributing factors of failure. You didn't try hard enough. You didn't put everything you had into it. Most of the rest of the reasons for failure explore the motive behind this lack of effort. There is no amount of research you can do on a topic that will cover for it. There is no amount of conditioning or practice that makes up for not being fully invested when it matters most.
3. Self defeatism. Just who do you think you are, trying to do this? You must have some nerve! You are a fake! You are a fraud! All your life you've been a nobody. All your life you have failed at everything you've tried. You should quit now, while you're ahead, so you don't have to experience another failure. We tell ourselves all the time what we cannot do. Eventually, we start to believe it. The clichéd phrase "a can-do attitude" is desirable because if someone has it, they are willing to at least give it a try. Are you willing to give it a try? Are you going to try it, but then convince yourself that it's beyond you? This is a mental battle and it's hard because you can't clearly see to opponents, two sides. This is why we believe ourselves. Surely our own subconscious has our best interests in mind? If you can't trust yourself, who can you trust? This requires a paradigm shift, and it's not simple to do. It is case by case. Don't let yourself fail before you've tried. A positive mental attitude can bring you to the finish line.
4. Fear. This is a tough one because it requires you to explore what it is, exactly, that you are afraid of. I mean, beyond just the failure. As an example, I will tell you what I fear the most when it comes to success. I fear that I will not have a lack of effort, that I will not self defeat, that I will try my hardest.....and still fail. Because of this fear, I often choose to save face, let people see that I didn't try my hardest. It's a fail safe. If I succeed, then great. If I fail, well, obviously, I wasn't trying as hard as I could have. And people know it. Once upon a time, I was an excellent basketball player. The people that knew me and my ability always picked me first for their team. Because of it, there was pressure to perform, to succeed in the role they believed that I could fulfill. Often, when I was not playing to what I thought was my best, I purposefully stopped exerting my usual effort. People knew that I wasn't trying my hardest, and I was content with them thinking that. My pride simply couldn't handle people thinking that I had played my best and still performed substandard. It was, at the time, a happy compromise. But, of course, a simple game of basketball is less important that the real success we try to achieve everyday in our personal and professional lives.
5. Importance level/Commitment. This almost should go without saying, but it's a point that, however apparent, must be stated. If the importance level of the success is not high, who cares? If your commitment to it is not high, then failure becomes an acceptable option. Why even try to begin with? If it isn't important, brush it off and move on to other endeavors that meet the requirement. Are you wasting time and energy on trying not to fail at something that is inconsequential? Are you draining time and energy from something that isn't inconsequential? This is a common misdirect. Focus on the things that matter. If you spend a lot of time cleaning your house and take pride in every pillow on the couch being in place, the curtains just right, everything organized and being in its place, what does all of that matter if ITS BURNING TO THE GROUND?! Grab a fire extinguisher, call the fire department! To hell with your bed being made! Focus on things that matter. Look at the big picture as often as you can remember to.
6. Complacency. After seeing the same thing for so long, as humans, we learn to accept it. That's why some of these reality TV shows are even in existence. They make over homes and people, rescue failing restaurants, teach parents how to discipline their kids, show people how to lose weight, etc. We get complacent. Don't feel too bad about it, though, it's human nature. We need an outside view, sometimes, to pull us out of our complacency. Imagine if we could look at our home, or business, or life with an outsider's eyes. Try it. It's tough. You really have to think about it. But it's possible. The point is, then, don't get complacent.
7. Refusal to change. If it's not working one way, try a different way. People have failed because of the simple inability to admit that the decision they made failed. Why continue to do something if its not working? It's not going to miraculously and suddenly start working. Change it. If you own a failing restaurant and you opened it as a steakhouse, but there are ten other steakhouses nearby, not only did you not follow rule number one, you are holding on to a failing decision. You need to switch your cuisine to something the market has a need for. Seems obvious, right? Your pride is in your way. It may also be a bit if rule number six-complacency, but the bottom line is: you need to make a change. Don't not change and continue to be unsuccessful. Take the leap. Change. The new decision may also fail, but at least you have eliminated another failing idea to get to the successful one.
Anyone who has been a success at anything has experienced multiple failures before the success, from Ernest Hemingway to Michael Jordan. It is how we respond to failures that will define us as successes and usually, when people succeed, we all reap the rewards of their successes.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Are You A Good Person? (Intention vs Action vs Perception vs Reality)
The thought has occurred to me on many occasions and it is just now that I have decided to consciously notate it here, quasi-indelibly. By it's very nature, I'm not sure that the word "indelible" can be prefixed with the word "quasi" but I use it loosely to begin with because by "quasi" I mean that this blog is only as permanent as allowed by its owners which, in every case, is not me and can therefore be rendered a death of which i cannot control. But I'm getting off topic here, so let me reign it back in...
The thought has occurred to me on many occasions: What makes a person good? I suppose first we must agree on an absolute definition of what we take for goodness. I don't typically deal in absolutes, because nothing, to me, is an absolute. Yet, to be fair and to stifle variables, to quell arguments of the definition of such a subjective idea, let us suppose that "good" in the most narrow scope as possible means morally and ethically sound according to the most popular consensus of what people understand it to be. The Christian bible is as good a place to start as any, because, though most people may not know it, this is the ultimate rule book that dictates what most of society considers right and good. It lays out an ethical code one should follow for righteousness. Religious or not, most of the world population can agree with many of the rules the book puts forth. In fact, I posit that we all know them so well, we could usually make an accurate guess at what choice, in an endless sea of choices, would be more ethically sound, given any number of scenarios. Then we come to that Einsteinian problem of relativity. From a different vantage point, a good choice could be a bad choice, and so the question then becomes "good for whom?" But for the moment, I will dispense of all relativistic issues, dispense of all subjective possibilities and throw out tedious interpretations of what good really means. Lets get basic.
So, really now, what makes a person good? Four possibilities. One. What if there were an intention of goodness, but the end result turned out bad? Two. What if there were an intention of goodness, everything worked out, and it turned out good? Three--the darker possibilities: What if there were an intention of evil, but things went wrong, and the end result is good? And finally, four, what if there were evil intentions, success, and the evil idea came to fruition? I contend that it is intention that makes a person good. Even if something turns out bad, it is the intention of the individual that really shows where their heart is. I'm talking true intention, here, not simply saying that good intentions were present. But then there's another problem, and funny how logic problems can turn a simple solution into a dilemma so quickly. We now have a problem of perception against reality.
Perception IS reality. What I perceive to be true and real, really is true and real--to me. If I perceive the ocean to be yellow and the sky to be red, these things are real to me. I'm sorry, but no amount of arguing will convince me otherwise. The rest of the world could see the ocean and sky as blue, and that would be their perception, their reality. But not mine. And so my point is that perception is reality and we all live in vastly different worlds of reality. It could be a tone of voice that changes a positive statement to a negative one. I hear the tone of voice and interpret it as sarcasm. You hear that same tone of voice but interpret it as emphasis. The interpretation can change our perception of reality. And whatever we perceive is real to us. To tie this all together, I'm basically saying that I can see a good action, despite the disposition of the intention and perceive someone as a good person. Their intention could have been negative in nature, but they failed and a good action came about. In my perceived reality, that is a good person despite the intention they had to do evil. So, then, can intention really matter at all in the scheme of things?
I think there is no accurate way to decide if someone is good. We can only judge by a person's actions, never by their intentions. We are in a best guess scenario when it comes to judging others. If we see that most of an individual's actions are good in nature, we might be able to correctly assume that their intentions align with those actions. But that's all it ever is: an assumption.
The only thing we can truthfully decide upon is whether or not we are good people. It is a self assessment. We know our own intentions. We understand our own motives. But we are in a brilliant world, a world congested with competing personalities, all trying to assess one another.
This all comes down to a skill most of us have adeptly refined. It's one that I believe holds a negative impact on one's righteousness. And that skill is perception manipulation. We constantly try to force other people's perceptions. We want people to see us a certain way. We want to inflict an impression of ourselves onto someone else. So we weave a reality from the fabric of perception. The intention here is to control the environment, to hold the power of how people perceive reality. We want to be the puppet masters controlling the show and we try, with all of our might to force the view. Again, I feel that this is negative behavior. We all want to be good. We all want to be liked. The power is truly in the hands of those who release the attempt to control perception. Live life. Create your own reality. Let others perceive their own reality without interference. It is then, perhaps, that you have become a good person.
The thought has occurred to me on many occasions: What makes a person good? I suppose first we must agree on an absolute definition of what we take for goodness. I don't typically deal in absolutes, because nothing, to me, is an absolute. Yet, to be fair and to stifle variables, to quell arguments of the definition of such a subjective idea, let us suppose that "good" in the most narrow scope as possible means morally and ethically sound according to the most popular consensus of what people understand it to be. The Christian bible is as good a place to start as any, because, though most people may not know it, this is the ultimate rule book that dictates what most of society considers right and good. It lays out an ethical code one should follow for righteousness. Religious or not, most of the world population can agree with many of the rules the book puts forth. In fact, I posit that we all know them so well, we could usually make an accurate guess at what choice, in an endless sea of choices, would be more ethically sound, given any number of scenarios. Then we come to that Einsteinian problem of relativity. From a different vantage point, a good choice could be a bad choice, and so the question then becomes "good for whom?" But for the moment, I will dispense of all relativistic issues, dispense of all subjective possibilities and throw out tedious interpretations of what good really means. Lets get basic.
So, really now, what makes a person good? Four possibilities. One. What if there were an intention of goodness, but the end result turned out bad? Two. What if there were an intention of goodness, everything worked out, and it turned out good? Three--the darker possibilities: What if there were an intention of evil, but things went wrong, and the end result is good? And finally, four, what if there were evil intentions, success, and the evil idea came to fruition? I contend that it is intention that makes a person good. Even if something turns out bad, it is the intention of the individual that really shows where their heart is. I'm talking true intention, here, not simply saying that good intentions were present. But then there's another problem, and funny how logic problems can turn a simple solution into a dilemma so quickly. We now have a problem of perception against reality.
Perception IS reality. What I perceive to be true and real, really is true and real--to me. If I perceive the ocean to be yellow and the sky to be red, these things are real to me. I'm sorry, but no amount of arguing will convince me otherwise. The rest of the world could see the ocean and sky as blue, and that would be their perception, their reality. But not mine. And so my point is that perception is reality and we all live in vastly different worlds of reality. It could be a tone of voice that changes a positive statement to a negative one. I hear the tone of voice and interpret it as sarcasm. You hear that same tone of voice but interpret it as emphasis. The interpretation can change our perception of reality. And whatever we perceive is real to us. To tie this all together, I'm basically saying that I can see a good action, despite the disposition of the intention and perceive someone as a good person. Their intention could have been negative in nature, but they failed and a good action came about. In my perceived reality, that is a good person despite the intention they had to do evil. So, then, can intention really matter at all in the scheme of things?
I think there is no accurate way to decide if someone is good. We can only judge by a person's actions, never by their intentions. We are in a best guess scenario when it comes to judging others. If we see that most of an individual's actions are good in nature, we might be able to correctly assume that their intentions align with those actions. But that's all it ever is: an assumption.
The only thing we can truthfully decide upon is whether or not we are good people. It is a self assessment. We know our own intentions. We understand our own motives. But we are in a brilliant world, a world congested with competing personalities, all trying to assess one another.
This all comes down to a skill most of us have adeptly refined. It's one that I believe holds a negative impact on one's righteousness. And that skill is perception manipulation. We constantly try to force other people's perceptions. We want people to see us a certain way. We want to inflict an impression of ourselves onto someone else. So we weave a reality from the fabric of perception. The intention here is to control the environment, to hold the power of how people perceive reality. We want to be the puppet masters controlling the show and we try, with all of our might to force the view. Again, I feel that this is negative behavior. We all want to be good. We all want to be liked. The power is truly in the hands of those who release the attempt to control perception. Live life. Create your own reality. Let others perceive their own reality without interference. It is then, perhaps, that you have become a good person.
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