When I go too long without experiencing the gut-punch of failure, I know I’m doing something wrong.
Feeling like I’m good at things feels good. It’s nice to ease into a flow state, produce work I’m proud of, and know at the end of each day that I did something worthwhile—made productive use of my time on this planet.
Unfortunately, that wonderful, comfortable, fulfilling state also suggests that I’m not challenging myself. I’m just doing more of the things I’m already good at. And while that’s not inherently bad, it does hint that I’m not putting myself in the position to learn as frequently as I would prefer.
Not all new skills or bodies of knowledge will leave us stumbling and fumbling, feeling like we’re all thumbs and incapable of performing basic functions. At times we’ll pick up a new sport or hobby or profession or field of inquiry, and it’ll click; these are rare, but feel-good moments.
Most of the time, though, for most of us, pursuing something truly novel means a lot of colt-like wobbling, cloud-brained confusion, and repeated attempts to do or understand things that we’re simply not yet capable of doing or understanding.
Any kind of learning is valuable, but the sort that requires we set aside our egos and allow ourselves to fail, and fail, and fail, until someday we fail a little less (or fail better) is particularly precious. That’s partly because it tends to be rarer—our brains don’t like this sort of education because it’s energetically expensive and riddled with unknowns, so we’re prone to avoiding it—and partly because it trains us not just to attempt difficult things, but to perceptually reframe such things so that we’re less likely to avoid them in the future.
These are not purposelessly taxing undertakings, they’re opportunities to hone parts of ourselves that are currently untested and untrained.
These aren’t scary, impregnable aspects of life, they’re just mountains we haven’t attempted yet—but which we could, and can, and maybe should, because what an adventure that would be.
I’m bad at a lot of things, and pretty good (in far fewer cases very good) at just as many or more. I try to fill my life with a bit of both, because all the things I’m good at—the things that really fill my life with joy, that fulfill me, that allow me to create and appreciate and more fully experience awe—are things I was once bad at. If I hadn’t faced down my hesitancy and kept putting one foot in front of the other (despite my plodding pace and the difficult moments when I wanted to quit due to confusion, embarrassment, and exhaustion), I wouldn’t have these good-at things in my life. I wouldn’t be where I am and who I am.
More efforts, more challenges and toil, means more options, more opportunities to flourish and grow, and more chances to develop aspects of myself (and the surfaces through which I interface with others and the world) that will be even more fulfilling.
I think that’s really wonderful and fun to think about, especially in those moments when something in my brain says, “Quit! Quit now! You suck at this! You’re embarrassing yourself!”
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