Tag Archives: failure

What I learned this week, January 17, 2025

Posted on by Bill Chance
Happiness
Braindead Brewing, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

The Happiness Paradox, Explained in 7 Minutes

There are only two kinds of people who do not experience painful emotions. The first kind are the psychopaths. The second kind are dead. There is a false understanding or expectation that a happy life means being happy all the time. No. Learning to accept and even embrace painful emotions is an important part of a happy life. 
—–Tal Ben-Shahar, The Happiness Paradox

Misery
Riverbank Sculpture, Mississippi River, French Quarter, New Orleans

Why the pursuit of happiness leads to misery — and what to do about it

A growing body of research shows that the pursuit of happiness actually makes us miserable. 
This paradoxical finding likely results from people setting impossibly high standards, excessively monitoring their happiness, and misunderstanding what will make them truly happy. 
Positive psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar says that to be happier, we must find ways to pursue it indirectly while also accepting painful emotions.

Nick on his skateboard.

Sisyphus, skateboarders, and the value in endless failure

Skateboarders regularly fail at their chosen activity. But that doesn’t make it a meaningless task of Sisyphean proportions

In the US talk show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (2012-19), the host Jerry Seinfeld remarks in a conversation with Chris Rock that ‘Those skateboard kids … are going to be all right.’ Rock expresses his agreement with Seinfeld, and they quickly move on to other topics. Their discussion about the value of skateboarding is quite brief (lasting about 20 seconds). But they agree that skateboarding provides skaters with a means of learning a life lesson. The lesson follows from the success of the skater in executing a manoeuvre after repeatedly failing (and falling). While some may nod their heads in agreement, it is worth considering whether Rock and Seinfeld are right. Does skateboarding teach a life lesson? If it does, is it a valuable lesson? Going further, why should we think that skateboarding is not, in fact, a meaningless activity that lacks any value?

A cute couple.

These ‘Bad’ Personality Traits Can Be Good, Actually

Messiness

Selfishness

Ego

Shyness

Prone to Distraction

Cynicism

Neuroticism

Thin Skin

Pessimism

self
Self Portrait Andy Warhol Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth Fort Worth, Texas

The myth of self-control

Psychologists say using willpower to achieve goals is overhyped. Here’s what actually works.

Choose Which Poison

Posted on by Bill Chance

“You’re going to pay a price for every bloody thing you do and everything you don’t do. You don’t get to choose to not pay a price. You get to choose which poison you’re going to take. That’s it.”
― Jordan B. Peterson

Bolivar Peninsula, Texas

I am working on a list of “Bill’s Rules” – hopefully coming up with a list of useful, yet pithy, statements that I, more or less, came up with on my own. I’m up to four, but have serious doubts about the fourth – probably goin’ to give that one up.

At any rate, Numero Uno:

The key to creativity and innovation is to embrace failure

This seems obvious at first – of course if you are to be creative and innovative you have to be willing to fail. What I’m saying goes beyond that – you have to embrace failure. You have to crave failure. You have to have failure as your primary goal.

To illustrate, I’ll give an example from that white-hot furnace meant to burn away all and any trace of creativity and innovation (and joy, and human-ess, and anything else worthwhile) – the world of the modern giant corporation. It is a world of metrics, and goals, and people scurrying like ants to meet those metrics… and the world be dammed. Not meeting goal, having that dreaded red box on the monthly PowerPoint metric presentation – projected on that screen in that sterile conference room – , is the worse thing in the world and a source of executive shame.

And they don’t understand why other companies (usually very small) always come up with the new ideas.

Here’s my idea – everyone should have on their annual review goal list – “I will initiate at least six major projects in the coming year that will fail… preferably fail in a spectacular and embarrassing manner.”

That would spur some creativity and innovation. And what happens if your projects all succeed in wild and unpredictable ways? Well, you weren’t innovative and creative enough – if you manage to hold on to your job you better try harder next year.