18/06/22

Thinking of my competitive nature, and the fact that I’m pretty unhappy nowadays. Perhaps my competitiveness is a factor here. Unhappy because I haven’t achieved much and am not skilled relative to others

2 options: either give it up (stop being competitive) or lean into it and do better

If I choose to pursue the competitiveness, then a possible problem arises: failure hurts (especially when coupled with lack of skill) and I have a shortage of (recent) accomplishments to lift me up.

For the first point about failure hurting, that’s probably a consequence of toxic competitiveness. Ideally failure should be a learning experience and not a point of pain. I can definitely see it as a learning experience from now on, but the pain component might be characteristic of a competitive nature unfortunately. What I’m scared of is that the fear of failure (stemming from fear of pain) will hold be back from actually pursuing anything, which is the case in my life right now. Maybe it doesn’t have to be this way though. First of all, I have to learn to deal with pain, uncertainty, and failure. Period. Once again, the only “true” failures are failures of willpower, which are always “avoidable” due to free will. These unavoidable failures which arise instead from actions which are aimed at getting what I want, but not resulting in what u hopes are OK. They won’t kill you and only occur due to a current lack of some kind of skill or experience. This can be made up for. They do not reflect on ME as a person in the sense that it does not attack my core traits such as goodness. I might feel that failure at some tasks might attack my self-belief in my intelligence. But this view is flawed because I should know that I am smart regardless of some event’s outcome that can be more adequately explained by lack of experience or skill. Also I should understand that I am fallible. I am not perfect and will be wrong sometimes and should be willing to be corrected or at least have a more integrated and correct view of the world. So when failure comes, it’s just a hurdle on the way to success, which is almost inevitable in the long run assuming I learn lessons from the failures and keep going and moving forward. Therefore, I shouldn’t be afraid of hurt by them and should view them as a mere learning experience. Once again it is more helpful to view my experience in the world as one of constant learning.