Thursday, June 13, 2013

Success & Failure

I read a line in an Isabelle Allende book about how success and failure were Western ideas or inventions, about how they don't really exist as per se.  I quit the other day and one of my bosses told my students (asking my permission first if it was okay) and then told them to implore me to stay.  One student (who I like a lot but don't generally think similarly to) told me I shouldn't quit because I move around too much and I should stick to one thing because it's a failure to quit.  She was basically equating quitting with failure.  This is the same student who also thinks I should get married and live probably a normal, "respectable" life.  It's difficult because a lot of people I know think like this.

I don't think in terms of success and failure anymore.  My greatest lessons, what I have learned the most from, have been the hardest things in my life, the struggles.  I hated almost every minute of being in Wulinguyen, China, mostly because I was so sick and that shaded so much of my experience there.  But it changed me forever and made me appreciate life in a whole different way.  My friendships and relationships, the most difficult parts especially, have made me evaluate myself and be more aware of whom I am and how that affects others.  I have learned so much from them.  Success and good times are great, I'm not saying they aren't, and I hope they always exist for me.  Of course I would prefer a life filled with more "successes" than "failures" but I find both terms problematic in that they create this ideas that the former is good and the latter is bad. 

I kind of view failure as never learning or as doing the same things over again and not changing yourself or not doing something different.  That's really the only way I ever see people as "failing."  I don't think quitting a job or moving or changing something is failing.  I think gaining new experiences and change are valuable.  I would much rather have a life filled with new, different experiences that challenged me than one where I had one or two or even three long term jobs.

This student also kind of thinks similarly with relationships, that I should get married and have kids, you know, the old settle down routine.  I'm not entirely against this but I'm not really for it either.  I think relationships, almost all of them, are valuable.  Sometimes they last and sometimes they don't.  I think it's good to have long term ones, but I don't equate one major long term one as success and the lack of that as failure.  Sometimes I want to want what everyone else wants, like I want to want to live the traditional life of marriage, family, and a stable singular job, but I really don't want it.  I used to be annoyed at myself sometimes for not wanting these things and most people don't understand why I don't want them.  I just accept it as it is at this point.  I don't want to have these things because I can't think of something better to do or because I'm too scared to live the life I want to have.  I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with marriage, children, and a single stable job and if they happen for me then they do but if they don't then right now I am perfectly satisfied with them not happening. 

I value experience and living out the ideas you want.  Quality time in a life of your own design filled with however you want to spend your time, whether it be working, in a hammock on a beach, reading, writing, with friends, family, or whatever you want...I think it is all valid.  I think if you can see what you want and you can go for it, whether you "succeed" or "fail" then that is valuable and that those two terms don't really exist.  But living a life chained to those two terms and letting them decide your feelings or your way of life is ridiculous.  Living a life conditioned by society and wanting things because you're told to want them as opposed to inherently wanting them, to me, is absurd or, probably more accurately, a lack of creative thought.  If you really want them though, the things society tells you to want, then that's great.  But if you're not sure what you want and you go after the things society tells you to want, then that might not end up fulfilling you.  I think you should figure out what fulfills you or search for it, and that search in and of itself is valuable.

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