Everyday Canvas

Success or Failure

Prompt: This year is almost over... What were your successes? Your failures? Is there still time to achieve your goals of 2015?
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I have to swim against the current here, as I never measure what I do in terms of successes or failures. Maybe because I think judging everything as either a success or a failure leads to self-sabotage. In my case, that judgmental determination is usually taken care of by other people.

If I have to push the idea, to me, success is helping as much as I can and failure is not doing as much as I can. Even that is tough to measure.

As to setting goals, I don’t. I only make lists of things to be done, so I don’t forget to do them. That is why I wrote the ‘dear me’ essay only once, the year when it started; that is the one WdC puts up every January. Believe me, it was the hardest thing I wrote as it went so against my character.

Having said that, I think those ‘dear me’ essays, encouraging oneself, and setting goals are essential for the up-and-coming authors. If anything, I would encourage every writer who wants to publish volumes and dreams of being rich and famous to do just that.

As for me, at my age, status quo is just fine. Whatever I do, I do it for enjoyment and I consider it an addition to myself, regardless of it being a success or a failure because one can learn from things that turn out as flops, too. When something feels right and I feel some kind of a rush while doing it, then it is a success regardless of the outcome. This may also be due to the fact that I am not much of a hustler.

My point of view is, any action has within itself its own meaning and purpose, even what may be considered a negative one. For example, let’s say that I felt jealousy for something or someone. That in itself is not so negative if I analyze it and find the source of it within my personality, but if I act on it in any way, without reflection, that would serve no purpose and wouldn’t be an addition to my being. Even so, the fact that I noticed how I felt has to be a win .