Monday, June 11, 2012
Failure
If you don’t try, you’ll never succeed. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back on that horse. I could probably load this up with a million clichés that I’ve heard over the course of my life. We’ve all heard them. The problem with clichés is that they’re true—true, over used, and ignored (or forgotten). Failure is a terribly crippling fear and it has plagued us all at one point or another. The fear of failure is most damaging when it comes to our fiercest desires, which brings me back to my first point: if you don’t try, you’ll never succeed.
The fear of failure is really a consequence of two much deeper fears: the fear of self and the fear of judgment. These fears are so deep seeded that many of you may have just rejected the idea outright. Perhaps my story can shed some insight.
For those of you who know me personally, you know I’ve been a musician my entire life. At every age of my life music has consumed me in some form. I have a degree in music. I teach music. I practice every day. I’ve played in many different musical groups of varied genres. I’ve been able to pay the bills as a musician, though I’ve had a lot of help from a loving family. You may even say this is a point of pride. Pride, however, is the guardian of fear. None of these accolades truly satisfy me because they don’t fulfill my wants from music—I have yet to obtain my love from music. It’s because I fear my love, I fear my desire, I fear myself.
A good friend introduced me to a film called “Risky Business” (you may have heard of it) at the tender age of 27. Miles says to Joel within the first twenty minutes of the movie something that I will remember for the rest of my life. “If you can’t say it, you can’t do it.” I couldn’t say it. I was unable to vocalize my dream; in fact, I was ashamed of my dream. It’s a dark place, being ashamed of the thing you want more than anything. Although, I’m sure I’m not the only one ever to be in this position.
Telling the world who you are, and what you want, requires a tremendous willingness to be vulnerable, and we don’t like to be vulnerable. Sure we open up to our friends and family, but uncommon is the courage to admit to another what we’re afraid to admit to ourselves. We begin to fear ourselves for our secret desires, we may lose respect for ourselves, we condemn the value that we hold for ourselves. All this is still a symptom to a still greater fear: judgment.
Judgment begins externally, but we drink it up. We even ask to be judged! Because of judgment we begin to fear ourselves, we have a natural urge to want acceptance. So we try our best to “fit in” and “be normal” because we believe that our inner self will be rejected. Judgment happens on such a subconscious level today that it is second nature. The truth is we judge others because we judge ourselves. We aren’t born judging others, we learn to. The first time we experience judgment it is likely not even directed at us. As children, we did what we wanted; always in the moment. But the moment we hear judgment, we realized that we’re constantly being watched and compared. Being “normal” is valuable, because it eliminates conflict from our lives. We become unwilling to deal with the conflict because we begin to assume that those who judge us are correct. We lose the value that we have for ourselves, we stop loving ourselves. When we stop loving ourselves, we lose the ability to truly love others; and thus the cycle of pain continues.
So how can we come to grips with ourselves? First we have to rediscover our self-value. We can find it in the way we love others, in appreciation, in communication: always through positive. But (and this is a big but) we must be vulnerable. In not judging ourselves we take the power away from those who judge us.
So, in the spirit of vulnerability, what is the thing I was so ashamed of for desiring? I want, more than anything, to be a musician that can reach large audiences. To be able to play music that I have lovingly created and spread the ideas of love, peace, and freedom to my fellow man, and to help those who feel they have no voice to find it.
I’ve been scared of this dream my entire life because I’ve been told since before I could vocalize it that I would never achieve it. I was judged, as we all are, and lost my self-worth. Judgment is an illusion. Choose to be vulnerable and proclaim your dreams to the world. The people who love you for your dreams are the ones who will stick with you and support you. The greatest thing we can do, when being vulnerable, is to love the people who continue to judge us, fore they are trapped in the hell of their own self judgment illusion. Remember, if you can’t say it, you can’t do it.
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Hi Matt, I have enjoyed some of your blogs, there are some good points and opinions.
ReplyDeleteI like the quote,"if you can't say it , you can't do it." I think it would be better said, if you CAN say it, you CAN do it. It would be good to expand on this idea for other methods of learning and doing. Like, if you can imagine yourself doing it, you will do it. I believe that the power of imagination and visualization are limitless.
I must respectfuly disagree with the comment, pride is the guardian of fear. In my experience pride is an outcome of attachment to ego. Although we all have one to some extent, ego it full of self and is spiritualy disconnected to the universe around it. I believe that love or compassion would better guard one from fear.
I like what you said about letting ourselves be vulnerable. If we can put ourselves in safe situations that we fear, and be open and vulnerable (even allowing ourselves to fail), we will grow as human beings and gain a better understanding of ourselves.
Thanks Matt, keep up the good work!
Hey Dobblins, thanks so much for the comment!
DeleteI love your idea turning the negative "can't" into a positive, "can." It really beautifully reinforces the point of keeping positive and loving, I'll use that next time.
Your comments about pride actually beautifully articulate my point from a different perspective. To reiterate, pride guards our fears from being challenged. We use pride (our ego) to keep us inside our shell, instead of being the free, loving beings we are. Love and compassion are the things we use to defeat our fears. I believe we're stating the same case here, but our imperfect language gets in the way of our communication! I'm so glad you enjoy my thoughts, and thanks again for the comment!