hello again...so i have been developing some content for a business journal that i will be putting together for my company this month and this is a topic i have been tossing around in my head.
It all started when i began analyzing why children are always so happy. What is it about childhood that fuels imagination, and what is it about experience that hinders us from imagining at all. (or at least giving validity to our imaginations).
The answer is failure, but before i came to that conclusion i had to look at one thing...
Children believe that anything is possible. they believe they can fly, they believe they can do anything, but they don't necessarily have the means to do it. Adults, on the other hand, have the means to do just about everything, but they don't believe it to be possible.
like i said before this all goes back to the idea of failure.
Children NEVER fail. They Learn.
"Failure" doesn't come until later, when we develop our own consequences for our actions. We then try to out-smart our imagination and say that "because i have never experienced this before...because i have never seen it done...there is no way that i can do this" and rather than try, we scare ourselves with the idea that we may not succeed.
We develop this monster that we call "failure", and we fear it. in fact we do (or don't do) everything we can to avoid it. The only part of our imagination that we take seriously, as adults, is the part that shows us what would happen if we did not succeed!
So does "adulthood" then mean "realizing failure"? It would seem so.
So then DAVE you're telling me that failure isn't real?
no, but i will tell you that we, as adults, go about it all wrong.
What if we saw failure the same way children do? What if it wasn't a monster, but a learning experience?
Now i know you have heard this a million times but put it into context...
You would never call a 6 year old a "failure" would you? No. Because you acknowledge that he/she is experiencing new things and learning. Another reason is because you don't want that 6 year old to be affraid to try new things and have new expereinces. But how is that any different that what we do from a day to day basis as adults? the only thing that makes us different, is that we DO call ourselves failures and as a result.... STOP TRYING.
Failure is real, because there has to be a word that mean "the opposite of success". But does it really have to be the monster we have made it out to be?
I look at it this way...Failure can motivate, or it can alleviate. Those are pretty much the only 2 reactions we have to failure
Failure:
It can motivate us to push harder.
or
It can alleviate any drive in us whatsoever.
With these reactions comes two types of people too.
Resilient people
or
Everyone else.
And just for clarification, you are not resilient if you only apply the "failure is a motivator" mindset to 1 aspect of your life. it must serve and THEE mindset for your life.
Now imagine if you could harness the imagination of a child, and the means of an adult. Will you ever truly fail?
The fact is,if you're successful then you're learning, if you're learning then you're growing..and if you're not growing.......you're dieing.
so in order to grow you must "fail", so failure, is just another part of success.
so do i support child labor...obviously no, but there is some value to a child's mind. There is something there that we all wish we had back. and i think this is it...Children simply do not fail....why should adults?
my.thoughts.exactly
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