What Happens To People Who Fail?

[AJ]

So I had this random thought. We know many success stories. We know all about how people almost had to sleep on streets and they were almost about to give up and then make a break through and after years of hard work get recognition and are successful. What about the people who don't make it? 

 

Suppose there is a person named Jacob, who knows football is his life purpose. He dropped out of high school to concentrate more on football. He used to play for small teams thinking it would get him somewhere. But now he is 28. He is on the street. He has no source of income and now he has few hundred thousands in debt. What happens now? Don't tell me stuff like he didn't put enough effort or he must never give up. Tell me examples of people who really "failed in life" if you can.

[egoeimai]

Noone can actually FAIL....In life noone can fail,only in their minds. Jacob can begin again,he can. And he must believe that he can. Noone is a failure. I have no stories to share. Even the most difficult lives people have experienced,somehow they get along with it in the end. Be positive! 

 

[Visitor]

I was a homeless addict-alcoholic for many years.

First of all, get a secure place to shelter the weather. Keep warm by placing newspaper under your clothes. Get food from soup-kitchens. Ask for help and listen. I was introduced to AA and NA that way, but took another 7 years of arrogance and ignorance before surrendering to any help them or others. Help comes to those who are humble. Anyway, get involved with helping others in same predicament. This will help to raise some self-esteem (later, if you are honest enough, you won't need it any longer).

Resolve to clear debts. See a financial counsellor about it. They have helped many others, such as problem gamblers. Look for any employment that will help you to finance re-education. I went to the library and started to study basic English and mathematics so I can enter a college. Day by day it all got better. Took many years to make amendments to others, such as repaying debts.

Most people need to hit a so called rock bottom before they become willing enough to go to any lengths to change. Unfortunately many play the game of thinking that they have not yet hit rock-bottom. But do when they die and get placed 6 feet under.

 

[Steph1988]

@Visitor That is a fascinating story so did u go to college? and was the willingness to change very sudden like lightning stuck you or gradual?

would you be willing to tell how and why you hit rock bottom? 

If u did it how did u solve your addiction? i am interested because i know an alcoholic who can't solve his addiction while he is a relatively rich person while you then would have done it in much harsher circumstances.

Were there moments in your improvement period that you were on the verge of giving up and started backsliding?

I hope u could answer maybe a few of these thx in advance. 

[electroBeam]

@AJ This is going to sound very frustrating and even offensive to ones who have failed, but its the bloody truth!

We all have 2 sides to our being, we have the inner voice of the angel on our left, and the inner voice of the demon on our right. Both make up our being.

The demon wants to succeed, it wants to grow the ego, it wants do dominate, it wants money and cars, it wants to identify with the attachments of this world. But most importantly, the demon doesn't want to be the one who fails, because the one who fails has nothing, and the ego wants to identify with as much as it can.

The angel, quietly whispers a different want. It wants to not want. It wants to dis identify with the ego, and to be totally liberated from the confines of our desires and physicality. Its wants YOU the true YOU.

Those who have succeeded have everything that everyone wants, has everything that demon could ever ask for. The successful footballer has a proud family, has fame, has money and has a beautiful wife. 

He has everything but himself.

The unsuccessful footballer though, doesn't have money, fame and fortune, he has failure. His ego has total humility. His ego has no choice but to love and accept what he was so desperately trying to avoid, the failed version of himself.

And in that process of self acceptance, comes a dropping of the ego, and full liberation. He has become what he has feared, he has accepted what was feared, what was undesired, and from that there are no boundaries left to be afraid of.

What happens to the successful ones? The get everything but themselves.

What happens to the unsuccessful ones? The get nothing except for themselves.

 

I'm one of those people who have failed, and I see now that failure was god wanting more for me in disguise.

Edited May 1, 2017 by electroBeam

[Visitor]

Hello Steph1988.

My words in blue.

1 hour ago, Steph1988 said:

@Visitor That is a fascinating story so did u go to college? Yes

...and was the willingness to change very sudden like lightning stuck you or gradual? At first slow (seven years of rock bottoms), then sudden (I had a moment of clarity and saw my own truth).

would you be willing to tell how and why you hit rock bottom? Drinking and drugging myself to near death.

If u did it how did u solve your addiction? Finally gave in to the suggested things of AA. i am interested because i know an alcoholic who can't solve his addiction while he is a relatively rich person while you then would have done it in much harsher circumstances.

Were there moments in your improvement period that you were on the verge of giving up and started backsliding? Yes, seven years of backsliding due to my arrogance and ignorance. I thought I could recover on my own.

I hope u could answer maybe a few of these thx in advance. 

[mostly harmless]

 

This illustration, of course, assumes the common conception of success and failure. What about a person who is very successful in life, and then at the end he/she dies? Is that ultimately a loss? What is success or failure anyways? It is a judgement. Wether you regard the outcome of someone's actions as success or failure is 100% relative to your expectations. If you want to explain something to somebody and the other person does not understand you, you could say it is the recipient's fault. Or you could say that the communication (as a process of a sender of information and a recipient of information) did not succeed. So you could work on the sender end or the recipient end, or on both ends. But it is your expectation that the communication is supposed to work that makes you decide wether it succeeded or not. Could you also modify the expectation then? 

The other thing is: Success or failure build on the state of things at one single moment. However, life is a process. What is the point of taking a single moment to decide wether or not the life as a whole was a success or not? With a lesser implication, road maps and goals make sense for planning, so you can have accountability and make sure you're on track. But that's a tool, not an absolute truth to judge wether a life in its entirety  is well lived or not.

People have needs and preferences. From a personal perspective everyone is more content if their life is close to their preferences. I enjoy helping out people I meet to get a good understanding of what they want and to be strategic how to get there. But success and failure as they are commonly understood are too much based on single moments. I would always argue that it makes more sense to focus on progress (each day) rather than outcome (at some single point in time). The focus on progress has one major practical advantage: No matter where you are in life, you can always make a little progress from day to day. 

 

Edited May 1, 2017 by mostly harmless