Fear of Failure

Recently David Brooks published an article in the New York Times speculating that we have set our children up for failure by constantly ensuring them that they will succeed.  He pushes this point further and states that this approach to child-rearing has backfired–creating a generation of twenty-somethings who believe they cannot fail no matter what they do.

Then a few weeks later in The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert did a review of “Tiger Mother” and pled Brooks’ case.  She states:  “Americans have been told always to encourage their kids. This, the theory goes, will improve their self-esteem, and this, in turn, will help them learn.”  Then she goes on to cite a study that proves the contrary is true, such encouragement only results in students overstating their abilities while lacking real skills.

One of my professors in college used to  say “We can’t all be above average.”   Speaking for my generation, we really all believe we are above average.  We don’t consider failure as an option because we were told not to.  We expect to walk into well-paying, established jobs with ample vacation time and upward mobility.  But the reality is that failure is always a possibility.  In fact, it is looming closer than we like to believe.

I blogged once about how I believe married couples should never consider themselves exempt from divorce.  You see, acknowledging failure is not and never has been bad.  It’s when you start to tell yourself that you are headed towards failure–that is when things become dangerous.  My boss always encourages his employees to buy a house, get married, settle down and have kids.  Why?  Because he wants them to stay awake at night realizing what they have to lose.  And that keeps them coming in early and leaving late, all to escape failure. 

Everyday when I think about my book and my writing career, I know that it is very likely that I will not succeed.  That no one will want to publish it, and no one will care to read it.  But there is something that compels me to continue; it is the pursuit of the art and the process.  So despite the option to fail, I still manage to make progress.  And I think that is the true definition of success.

I used to believe that you should never allow fear to motivate you, but in some cases, I think fear is the best motivator.  I realize that some people cannot swallow what I’m saying here because they’ve trained themselves to constantly focus on the positive, but if I can be a realist for one moment, let me say life is not all positive.  Dwell on the positive, but if you never acknowledge the negative, you will miss a lot of life and you will never realize true success.