For a while I've been thinking about what it means to be successful vs a failure.
Are they binary states of being? Are they black and white, or more a spectrum? Are they mutually exclusive?
Is a success never a failure? Or vice versa?
I think it's more a continuous state of mind. Not to say they're not entirely made up constructs, and very, very subjective, both of which they are to a very large extent.
But also not to say that society doesn't have a very clearly defined set of parameters for what success (and failure) look like.
In terms of physical appearance, the wealth and property you own, the people you're surrounded by, the respect you get, the followers you have, etc.
I do believe that, largely, each person defines their own terms for success, and if you tick off those boxes you've set for yourself, you're successful.
But a large part of it also comes down to making others see that you're successful, na?
Because what even is success if it doesn't change others' perception of you for the better? If it doesn't make them believe you're the superior being, and - in the larger neurotypical scheme of things - they must listen to you and obey.
I don't know.
I have started to think that success and failure are both very ephemeral.
Like it's a daily thing. Every day you succeed and some things, every day you fail at others. And some things are net no result.
Like for example if you're up for an award, the day's success or failure builds up until the point that the announcer on stage is going through the nominees list. The moment the name of the winner is announced, if it's you, that's the day's success. And it lasts for the whole 10 minutes that you walk up to the stage, take the award, shake hands, do photos, make your grand speech, and walk off.
The moment you're doing the walk off, the success - which for those 10 minutes was in a state of limbo, existent but neither really moving towards fading out nor growing - is now slowly fading away. It's already begun to subdue.
Now the deal is to maintain that success. Because in this world, not being able to maintain a level of success you've reached is also - believe it or not - failure.
As for me, as a neurodivergent individual, I succeed every day, I fail every day. My parameters are way different than most others because people might find the things that I find difficult very easy, and so my challenges are alien to most neurotypicals.
So if I manage to finish some work while there's a loud procession passing by outside, or crackers going off, that's a huge win. That's me having achieved the day's success. Or doing a 20-min Headspace session without having a single bugging thought. That's major success.
Failure would be not being able to tick off everything on my to-do list, or falling behind on a course. Which - again - is something that does happen every other day.
Of course these are only a couple of the things from my everyday to-do list, but my point here is that success and failure are literally every day occurrences.
It's like a large horizontal scale with zero in the center, and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 on the right, and the same sequence on the left (no negatives, because success is hardly a negative).
Say you do three things successfully, and you fail at two. That's a net count of S1. So net net, you saw success that day. Your net count every is what matters, what adds up.
So of course the larger goal is to be able to see success in every thing every day, and failure in nothing, but until the time I'm human, that's not possible.
So trying to have a minimum net S1 every day is the goal. Net S1 and >S1s add up to count to something in the long run.
Up until the point you're walking off stage with that gleaming, shiny, glittery award.
Cuz by the time dinner's served that evening, you're already wondering what peak to conquer next. The scale's already been reset to zero, and tomorrow's a shiny, glittery new day to prove yourself all over again.
No comments:
Post a Comment