Happiness through failure-Guest blog

The only way to be happy is to fail.  

But what is that even supposed to mean? 

I believe that one of the secrets of life lies within this apparent contradiction. This truth may not be what you think it is, nor will it be comfortable to attain. Very few people are brave enough to confront this reality, and even fewer have the courage to pursue it. But to do any of this, to find this truth, you have to ask yourself a question: Who am I? 

This is not your college essay prompt. This is not your high-school retreat reflection question. And, full disclosure, it probably won’t make you feel very good either. This is the question you must ask yourself every day when you look in the mirror. Who am I? Who am I right now? Not who I want to be in the future, or who I was before, but who am I now? This is the question that begins your journey to happiness, and by doing this, this is how you uncover where you need to go. Unfortunately, when the vast majority of the population (and often myself included) looks in the mirror, we don’t see ourselves. We see who others want us to be. We see who we think we should be to fit in and to be cool. We see the names that people call us, the suspicions of what other people talk about behind our backs, and we see our past mistakes. 

We see anything but us. A bit frightening, isn’t it? 

Why is this a problem though? After all, you may say to yourself, my life is comfortable, I have friends, and I seem to fit in at school. I’m fine with being the person it takes to maintain what my life is like, even if there is a nagging suspicion it isn’t my own reflection who looks back at me. But, there’s a problem with this thought: if it’s not you that you see in the mirror, it’s an illusion. It’s fake. What we need to understand in a time in which the lives and thoughts of other people are constantly projected onto us is that there is something deeply and fundamentally wrong with not looking at who you really are. To find out if you don’t see yourself in the mirror, you simply need to ask yourself one thing: are you living to make others happy or to make yourself happy? To clarify, there is nothing wrong with cheering people up and helping people. These are extremely noble aspirations. But for a second, you need to be selfish. Ask yourself, “am I living on my own terms? Who is really controlling my life?” 

For me, the answers to these questions were rather uncomfortable. This was not a particularly joyful experience, nor did it make me happy in the moment. I realized that I was taking too much time to worry about what others thought about the choices I made. I worried about how they thought I looked. But what I realized most of all was that my life was a life of fear. To answer the earlier question, I was not living on my own terms, nor was I controlling my own life. Fear was. This is not a fear of ghosts or spiders, but a deep fear of the unknown. This is the fear pervades all of us and is the true force that masks our original selves. What is this unknown though? And why should we be afraid of it? The unknown is rejection. It is a bad grade. It is worrying about what other people think about you. It is a broken relationship, or a barbed comment. It is failure, it is suffering, it is loss. It is anything we think we cannot do. The unknown is a dark place, the place which we would prefer not to go. The unknown sounds pretty bad. Given the circumstances, it seems reasonable to want to avoid it. So why go there in the first place? 

The reason why we must seek the unknown is that while many terrible things lie there, there also lies the potential for something greater. The only way to do something you have never done before is to actually do something you have never done before. For whatever reason, people seem to think that we can achieve greater things while still being comfortable and not reaching beyond ourselves. Why is it that we don’t want to go into this unknown, to go to a place which, by definition, unfamiliar and is uncomfortable to us? The only thing that holds us back from being who we really want to be is fear. Fear stops us from achieving our potential. It is fear that stops us from pushing ourselves a little harder on the next rep or from putting in an extra hour of studying. We fear what will happen to us if we do something that we have never done before. But most of all, we fear failure, of not realizing our full potential.  

I have some good news for you, though: You are supposed to fail. You will fail. You need to fail. You have to fail. 

This is the most comforting news that I have ever received in my life. Now, we have no reason to be afraid of the unknown. We can now dive headfirst into what is uncomfortable, unpleasant, and unknown. We no longer have to worry about taking risks or embarrassing ourselves. What’s the worst that can happen? Failure? We’re supposed to do that anyway, so why on Earth would we be afraid of it? By recognizing fear’s effect on our lives, we now have the tools to confront it. It may seem strange to classify every event in your life as a struggle between fear and the unknown, but this is what we must do in order to truly confront our fears. And when we know how to confront fear, we ultimately regain our power of choice. This is scary, and it takes courage. After all, the definition of bravery is overcoming fear. The cost of confronting fear is being uncomfortable, but we gain an incredible treasure: we can live life on our own terms and not be controlled by the external factors of our circumstances. We no longer have to worry about who is better than us or if we are good enough ourselves. When we choose, we get to live as we want and be who we really want to be. 

This is happiness. This is what allows us to look in the mirror and see ourselves. Now, we can know who we really are. 

worry

I remember that I was waking up during the summer feeling kind of anxious and worrying about things.  I found this kind of odd since the summer for a teacher is one generally of relaxation. When I started to walk around, I felt the tension in my body, mostly my shoulders.

So even though I did not feel that I had more to worry about than usual in my life I could feel it in my body.  I have heard many people, including my wife, tell me that you should not worry about things that you can not control but that still did not help me.


I started one morning writing down all the things that I was worried about.  The list contained the usual worries you might have about your kids, family, health, and job.  I then put the list of worries on my calendar dated two months from the date I wrote them.

I totally forgot that I even wrote the list until it turned up on my calendar sixty days later.  As I was going through the list most of the things that I worried about never came to fruition.  I realized that I was wasting a lot of energy on things that never happened instead of putting my energy into things that I could change.


Now I realize the answer is not to worry at all however as an economics teacher I must state that worrying about things you can not control is not a good return on your investment.  Also, when I realized that most of the things that I worry about never happen I could feel the tension leave my body which is truly one of the greatest feelings.


My advice if you find yourself worrying too much is make a list of your worries and then check back on them.  Hopefully you will find the same results as I did.

specialization vs generalization

Specialization?



When I was a young kid you could set the calendar according to the sport we were playing.  As the season changed we went from baseball to football to basketball.  Now however, with the explosion of AAU, Club and travel teams you find that athletes focus on only one sport.  Parents scrambling for scholarships claim that without this total dedication to one sport that you cannot get a college scholarship.  Is this true?

I recently read an article about Roger Federer, arguably the best tennis player of all time.  When he was a young kid he played any game that used a ball.  When he became a teenager, he started to realize that tennis was his best game.  His mother a tennis coach did not want to coach him because he took too many crazy shots.  His father’s input was just making sure he never cheated.

When interviewed Federer claims that the fact he played different sports allowed him to do things on the tennis court that other players could not.  That he was able to take the skills acquired from different sports to produce a great tennis player.  So, while he might have been temporarily behind some of the specialists in certain areas, his creative shot making ability carried him.

Now does that work in other fields.  The answer seems yes.  That while you might be behind on the mundane everyday stuff.  However, when a creative solution is needed it seems that people who have dabbled in different things come to the forefront.  Just like Federer they are able to use the skills and perspectives they have gained from other fields to help solve complex problems.

So, do not be afraid to dip your toe into the water of many different things.  You might cultivate your passion a little later in life but you will bring those many different perspectives to your job which ultimately will make you more effective

Do I belong

I was reflecting on my first day of college.  I was about two years younger than most, socially awkward, no real direction and nobody I knew who navigated college to lean on.  At that time, I did not wonder did I belong I was convinced that I did not belong.  Many people who are entering these new positions are wondering the same thing, do we belong?   Do we belong socially, emotionally and intellectually in this new environment?

Greg Walton,  a psychologist at Stanford, has done a lot of work on interventions on social belonging (more here).  The first thing to realize is that if you feel you do not belong you are not alone.  That while it might seem that others are just blending in better than you, they are just actually better at faking it.  That they are sharing the same feelings but just are not allowing you or anyone else see them.  Compare yourself to yourself yesterday not to other people who are not you.

The second thing is to realize that the feeling is temporary and will go away in time.  On the social aspect it is worth remembering that psychologists estimate that it takes 50 hours of time to turn an acquaintance into a friend.  200-300 hours to turn that friend into a good or best friend.  So, if you are worried that you do not belong because you have no friends give it time.  The good friends you had at your last job, or your last school did not come overnight.  Feel free to use those old friends as a support system as you get acclimated in your new situation.

Realize that we all progress at different rates so do not let anyone else make you feel that you do not belong.  For new students in college, be confident in the admissions people who selected you.  They had many applicants and chose you.  If you are taking a difficult class know that your guidance counselor had confidence that you had the ability to handle such a difficult course.  The new opportunity should be viewed as one of growth not one of struggle.

Recently, I had a chance to speak with a former student struggling at a new job.  We were able to set up some simple strategies to help them feel like they belonged.  They talked to more veteran employees and found that they felt the same way at the start, and they are now thriving

My last challenge is for those experienced people, reach out to the freshman, or the new people on the job.  I wish that I had someone reach out to me my freshman year it would have made a world of difference.