Success vs. Failure

“One who fears limits his activities”

Henry Ford

“I have not failed.

I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

Thomas Edison

Most decisions in the average individual’s day are driven by the simple avoidance of failure. Ask yourself, am I more likely to pursue a task, agenda, or goal if there is a greater probability of success vs. failure. This type of decision making methodology is used every day to make from the simplest mundane choices to critical life altering decisions. Of course the successes and failures are weighted, but generally where we anticipate the most success, we tend to gravitate.

Like most, I too have based many of my decisions on the possibility of success vs. failure. At these times I aggregated all of the relevant data and made a prudent decision. This process moved me up and down the Eastern Seaboard of the United States several times in my adult life based on the assumptions of life being better somewhere else(success vs. failure). I chose my college education based on the fact that there is greater demand for one subject/skillset hence I’m more likely to get a job vs. another subject/skillset that held intrigue and passion, but low demand hence limited job possibilities (success vs. failure). Heck, I purchased my house and married my spouse utilizing some aspect of this methodology (success vs. failure). And why not, this is the way many of us are taught to make decisions.

I myself feel this way, and have proof that supports this methodology as a sound decision making apparatus. I get up every day thinking that most of my decisions were very prudent and I am bearing the fruit of those good choices. Today I love the work I do, I get to work with brilliant fun people, and I have the honor of performing a duty that is relevant to my community and gives me a sense of satisfaction. I can also see at the end of the day where I may have actually helped someone. So my decision making methodology was good-right?

I say right-but like most people I pay a penance everyday for those “Greater Probability of success /Failure Avoidance Decisions”. Every day at some point I think about how fabulous if would have been to have gone with that other option. Albeit I have no regrets, in my mind regrets are obvious lapses in good judgment based on all of the information given at the time. I have more of the Robert Frost-“The Road Not Taken” types of questions (In this case the opposing view of course). A copy of the poem is provided at the bottom of this posting for those of you thinking what poem is he rambling on about.

But then it hits me, most of the current happiness and richness in my life is not a result of the successes in my life, but of the failures. Case in point, every time I moved along the East Coast it was because at some point there was a failure (failure).This forced me to look at career choices that did not have high probability of success but made me abundantly happier in other ways (success). My decision to educate myself in a particular field, which then underwent what some deemed a global catastrophe back in 2008 (failure) .These events, forced me to reevaluate "the sure thing/greater success" assumptions that I made about my prior years’ choices(success). I suspect that many of you will find similar experiences in your lives. All of this blah, blah, blah is to say that failure is necessary. It allows us to take a moment and reevaluate. And every now and then we should make a decision not based on chances of the success or failure decision making model, but on what we really want.

There is a saying in the business world-only through failure can radical innovations occur. This is also relevant to the individual jobseeker. Only through failure can we reevaluate our course of action and reconsider those other options. I’m living proof of that.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

...Robert Frost