Aug 25 • General discussion
A recent discussion
My statement: The opposite of success is not failure it is stagnation.
Question posed to me: "Its like when we come to a stopping point. It could be a place of contemplation before rising up, or could be a place of feeling drained of spirit and life due to circumstances, health, abuse, loss, or other. I'm just thinking about what you said. Why do you think it happens? Or what do you do about it?"
Stagnation? I think it comes from fear, mostly. Fear of the unknown. Fear of failure. Fear of being ridiculed. Fear of loss at its core. It could be a fear of losing money, safety, community, etc. So, when someone starts off with an idea for something and someone close to them tells them it won't work then they stop. Sometimes they are afraid of trying again because they don't want people saying, "I told you so". Or maybe they are afraid that people won't like them if they fail - that they won't get the approval they crave. Maybe they have financial fear of trying again (losing money, job, etc.) So many reasons for not starting up again when they stop. As many reasons as there are ideas, really.
I believe that once we are stagnated we need to decide why before we can move out of stagnation. That is where deeper understand of ourselves is essential. Reflecting, journaling, digging deeper beyond the surface of "why".
There was an exercise that one of my English teachers used to show us how to get deeper into a story. It applies for life as well:
You come to a stopping point in life. Ask yourself why you stopped. When you get that answer, you ask why to that, and when you get that answer you ask why to that and so on until you reach the core of it. The "why" can be replaced with who, what, when or where, depending on the answers - but it's always followed up with why again.
For example. According to the story, Thomas Edison set out to make a device to provide light. He and his team tested material after material after material trying to find one that would work as a filament and would last. The first material didn't work. The team asked why. They came up with an answer and then tried again. That didn't work. They didn't decide that the PROJECT wouldn't work, they asked why again and tried again. They did this 1000 times (give or take) until they finally found what they were looking for. Can you imagine? 1000 times. When he was asked how it felt to fail 1000 times, he said that he didn't fail, he just found 1000 things that didn't work.
I've learned over the years that almost all "failures" and stagnation of forward movement come from fear of some sort. We just have to dig deep enough to really understand what it is that we are afraid of. It's not our circumstances - because some people overcome huge blocks in circumstances. We trudge on until we are afraid to go any further, then we stop. Or we keep going until we succeed.
That's what I think. Humans are IMMENSELY inventive and resilient creatures with an abundance of possibilities if we don't limit ourselves with fear and doubt.
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