Have you ever heard that every time something is gained something is also lost? That seems to be one of those interesting ‘head-scratchers.’ It almost makes it sound as if you are doing something wrong when you gain something. I have given this concept some thought, applying it to my life, and realize how true it really is.
When you gain something, you remove opportunity because what was there for you to accomplish is now gone. Conversely and yet with similar context, if you are not taking ground, you are likely losing ground.
One of the most prominent thoughts that I have regarding this apparent dichotomy is that when I have success I lose the opportunity to learn from failure. That may sound as if I have a self-defeating or masochistic personality disorder. That could be, but it isn’t how I am thinking as I attempt to dissect this dichotomous comparison.
Take it from someone who has gained a great deal of opportunity to learn from failure that I love success. I doubt you will ever catch me complaining about it, or saying ‘Gee, I wish I would have failed that time, so that I could have learned more.’ The truth is that if we did ever say that, the previous comment regarding masochistic personality disorder would likely fit us like a glove.
I prefer to approach this subject differently and address it with a couple of different behavioral tendencies or personality traits in mind. When you win, you are likely to be elated or at least happy about winning. There is such gratification in finishing in first versus second place. As an athlete, I always enjoyed winning games versus losing them. Would you prefer to finish your season 8-2 or 2-8? For most of us that is an obvious answer.
If that is so, what about when we do finish 2-8 – how does that effect your autonomic nervous system where your emotions originate and materialize? An antonym for elation, as we most often feel when winning, is despair. How depressing a thought to realize that if winning and losing are opposites, the resulting opposite feelings could be so impactful. Why even play the game if we have a chance to lose and could experience despair as a result? The first answer is because…we enjoy it. This discussion is getting stranger by the moment. It begs the question, do we all have a bit of self-defeating personality disorder? Perhaps, but there is another answer to that question that I prefer to provide. I believe that we are willing to risk the pain of losing simply to compete. And, I personally know that we love, love, love to get even with that same opponent later.
When we think of a tendency, we think of the words propensity and penchant. We win and have a propensity to be happy. We lose and have a penchant for sadness. Those are some behavioral tendencies to the circumstances that we experience. On the other hand, trait is more of an attribute or character-base and can be seen in the manner that we approach circumstances, whether winning or losing. If we are gracious when winning, we are more likely to be gracious when losing. The difference is how tempered our emotions are and stem from our attitude about circumstantial occurrences.
So, when it comes from learning from failure, our attitude plays such a big role in our ability to learn from our failures. You have surely heard the phrase ‘learn from your mistakes and don’t do them again.’ I don’t know about you but I have repeated mistakes, some of them several times. When that happens to me, I believe it is because my emotions are not tempered and I have blurred vision regarding accountability. It also means that I haven’t been willing to accept defeat and am in denial about what occurred.
If, however, you and I take responsibility for our failures, I believe that we have greater courage. Greater courage enables us to temper our tendencies and exhibit traits that are more thoughtful and realistic. So instead of being caught in the proverbial ‘tempest in a teapot’ we can find shelter in the storm of failure. There we can analyze what may have gone better than it did and how to make changes to do it better the next time. Thus, learning from failure can only stem from the lack of success and therefore is lost when success is gained.