living in the in-between

live in the space between states of being

i think about success and failure a lot. most fear the latter and pursue the former. i assert that the way most people think about success and failure in particular is quite limiting and is detrimental to any sustained upward growth

the way we think about concepts such as these is baked into our language. english addresses the concept of success and failure like states of being.
she is successful or he is a failure is how you’d describe someone who has the quality of success of failure.

it’s almost like in english, you don’t experience success, you become it.
in other languages you might have a little bit of success, but in english, you are success.
it’s almost like those who are successful were always successful, or at least meant to be
and once you’ve achieved success, that’s it, you’re successful.

i believe we ought to approach it differently. success and failure are less like states of being, and more like events that occur on a timeline. i think chasing this “state of success” is a folly as there isn’t ever a true state of success. the nature of living and of working gives way to an ever present demand for more - i don’t think i will ever “feel successful”. success happens, and then it passes, like everything else.

in the same light, there isn’t ever a true state of failure. like success, failure is an occurrence, a debt you pay once. no one is a “failure” for failing once, twice, or even uncountable many times. the failure will pass, in the same way as the success, like everything else.

success and failure both happen, the point isn’t to maximize success and minimize failure. the point is to learn what you can from both

live as the motion in between states of being

do you want a fresh start? a clean slate to start again? let me explain why that’s not possible, and why that’s actually a good thing.
trying to find a clean start is like trying to determine where red stops and orange starts on the color wheel, it’s arbitrary to some extent
maybe its waiting until next monday to start going to the gym, or swearing you’ll start casing after your finals are over, you’ll never feel truly ready to “start new”. life doesn’t have clean conclusions and beginnings, it’s full of things in motion.

each of us is on a continuous journey to an uncertain destination with successes and failures along the way. the results are byproducts of the journey, not the objective. each one of us will experience the highs of success and the lows of failure, they are guaranteed events that happen to everyone.

in that light we ought to not concern ourselves with the byproducts of our journey, for there is no difference between someone who’s experienced success and someone who has not, the difference is simply time.

success isn’t the goal. it doesn’t mean an end to work, toil, or learning, but rather it’s a part of the journey

i think the real treasure in life is making the motion or the “getting better at it” part of the journey fun