Having A Polar Bear Fleece Bathrobe Is Not An Indicator Of Success, No Matter How Much It Costs
Yesterday the high was 101 F in Phoenix, so Silas came outside to play pool in his Polar Bear fleece bathrobe.
It's almost a shame to sully this image with comment, but I'll go ahead and do so anyway.
He's a good kid - no, he really is. He has a work ethic (I don't know where he got it; it ain't genetic) - the boy rides his bicycle 15 miles roundtrip to McDonald's on work days, and he's saving his money for a car. And it seems that he's learned a lot about how to live from watching Ethel and I make our mistakes.
He's not exactly a social butterfly, but then I was never Homecoming King, either. He does get along much better with adults, or with toddlers, than he does with kids his own age - but, then again, most kids his age should be taken out and horsewhipped, so maybe that's actually a VIRTUE.
So sometimes I get to thinking that maybe - just maybe - Silas won't be a drain on society's resources all his days.
But then he puts on a fleece bathrobe and comes outside to play pool in 100 F, and I realize that all is lost.
Of course, perhaps I'm missing the point. Maybe Silas is doing this to build character and mental toughness, the same way that Emil Zatopek used to run intervals from telephone pole to telephone pole while holding his breath, or like Demosthenes would speak with pebbles in his mouth to make it more difficult to speak (anyone who's heard Silas talk when he gets excited would have to agree with the Demosthenes comparison).
But I'm forced to consider the possibility that, instead, the boy's just dumber'n a bag of hammers.
I mean, I have to CONSIDER that possibility; Silas' teachers tell me that he's bright. Silas' mother tells me that he's bright. But so far, there's nothing on the record to indicate any great intelligence - and I have to remember that folks used to tell me that I was really bright, as well, and I wound up living in a pup tent in Texas. (Living in a pup tent is an indicator of stupidity; but doing so in Texas is proof positive).
The other day, I was bemoaning my acute awareness of failure, and my brother Jerry (in God's Country) allowed as to the following:
"f you are paid well to do something you enjoy and come home to a veritable castle full of love then to assume you are somehow a failure seems to smack of hubris at the least and ungrateful to the Gods as well."
I couldn't disagree more - and I'm sure that Jerry will disagree with himself, once he reads my masterly analysis of the situation.
There's two ways that we could go here - we could attack Jerry's statement and work from there by counter example, or we could work from a definition of failure (and likewise of success) and see if there's anything in Jerry's statement that is conclusive.
Since I'm verbose, we'll do both :)
Jerry's statement indicates that if one
a) is paid well for employment that
b) is something that one enjoys, and
c) comes home to a nice house (that's how I'm interpreting "veritable castle") and
d) that said home has someone in it who loves the person in question,
THEN
that person is NOT a failure.
a) Being paid well doesn't mean "success". Many people are paid much better than I am for FAILURE - for instance, CEOs who are fired by their companies. They get a payout that is far beyond my most fevered imaginings, but they got fired for failure - and they are aware of it, and it sticks in their craw, and they do everything that they can to find some other opportunity (if you are one of those folks who thinks "gee, why would they bother working when they have all of that money for NOT working?" then, like me, you're one of the people who will never be a highly-paid CEO :)
b) A lot of people enjoy their jobs, but they are aware that they could do much more; they are called "underacheivers". In fact, what they enjoy most about their jobs is the lack of pressure to perform.
c) I could say that having a nice home could be a side-effect of the "being well paid" clause, above (see (a)), but I won't - because, in my own case, my home (which I do love, BTW) came to me not by any merit of my own; my mismanagement of my real estate investments is legendary. God got that house for me, in such a way that nobody who knows of the circumstances can really believe that it happened(including Ethel, who keeps expecting somebody to show up and tell us to leave).
Besides, whilst I do love my home, now that we're in it we can't afford to buy big-ticket items or take vacations or buy underwear or eat, so it's not really indicative of success.
d) Being loved has nothing to do with the worthiness of the recipient; if it does, then it's not love.
So Jerry's wrong in that direction. Let's go the other direction. What's the definition of success?...and of failure?
We could go to the dictionary, but we won't, because that wouldn't be any fun. Instead, let's go to an old standby aphorism - ready? Tell me if you buy this one:
"You're not a failure if you fail. You are a failure if you quit trying."
I like this one. Sure, it doesn't define SUCCESS, but then Jerry wasn't talking about "success" but denying the existence of "failure". Besides, not only is this little saying poetic, but it also contains an emotion component of success that any cut-and-dried definition would lack - that of EFFORT. If you keep trying, then you're not a failure - and, if you try and it works, then you're a success.
But, then, that component of effort is essential. A flower is beautiful, but we don't think of it's blooms as being SUCCESSES, because the flower wasn't TRYING - it was doing what comes naturally and easily. A bird's song is not a success - it is easy and effortless.
But to give up trying - oh, yes. That, indeed, is failure itself.
And that's what makes me a failure - because, you see, I've given up trying.
In many ways, I never got started trying - I was aware, early on, that there wasn't really anything to me, so why bother trying? Besides - folks were telling me how smart I was. I always knew that, if I really tried anything hard, that I would fail, and then so much for being able to pretend that I was everything that they said that I was.
I did, indeed, really try to do a lot of things recreationally, so to speak - but since I never had any talent for any of them, I would reach a plateau and lose interest. Failure, failure, failure.
A few years back, I really put my all into a project at work (with my former employer) and thought that I had had a great success - but, to my pain and surprise, I got a bad review for my efforts. Some time later, I got praise and recognition for that work from some pretty high-level types in the company, but by that time the damage had been done.
I have a good job and I do well at it, but it's the sort of job where increasing one's efforts quickly results in diminishing returns - so in this case, "trying harder" would just result in more frustration.
I've considered changing to another career track - maybe management or somesuch - but I don't DO that, because it would be scary, and I'm already old, and beside - I would fail, so why bother trying?
So by the most basal and emotional definition of all - the emotional aphorism - I am most definitely a failure.
But I'm not bitter about it :)
Besides, in the middle of those dark nights of self-doubt and self-loathing, when I feel that cold chill creeping into my soul - I just go borrow Silas' polar bear fleece bathrobe, and I'm warm and cozy again ;)
Excuse me y did u steal my name!!! Im fat charlie and ur fat and ugly and need liposuction!! Plastic surgery wouldnt go a miss!!
FATTIE!!!!!!!!
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In spite of, or possibly because of, your cogent analysis I stand by my earlier comment. You couldn't possibly do well at your job unless you liked it so you are doing something you enjoy. That in itself defines success. I would say "QUITYERBELLYACHEN" but then what would Fat Charlie's Diary do for material?
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