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OrgasmicBanana
aka "PICO"



Registered: 08/02/08
Posts: 450
Last seen: 7 years, 10 months
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Fear of failure
#21755744 - 06/03/15 12:59 AM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Failures are inevitable and necessary -- It's been talked through my ears until the meaning was lost. so many times but it never sinks in. I have shown some courage, taken some risk. I have taken a different path, radical but so pedestrian. Bold maybe, but now it seems so feeble. So typical.
Fear of failure has petrified me. It's a pattern, constantly cropping up in my life. To throw away a great job and everyone I ever knew, give up my career and move 2,000 miles away was easy. The actual challenge is overcoming the fear I generated from it: the ever present thought of dragging myself back home, beaten, broke, proving my dreams foolish and my ideals naive. Indulging in the fear itself is the only likely way I will fail, yet I cling to it in my heart, and my rational thoughts bounce around uselessly in my head. I didn't expect any fantasy of painless transition, believe me. My new environment, my new life, kicked me in gut so hard I can barely breath, the change is so utterly complete. In a new, oddly sideways world, I probe the darkest caverns of my mind to uncover my deepest fears, in the shade of a palm tree on a picturesque tropical afternoon. Everything beautiful has taken on a sinister slant and I'm always on edge. The only familiar things are McDonald's signs and the commentary in my head, a play by play of each possible failure, my self doubt.
My fear is like this stupid palm tree, I can either hold on to the trunk(likely covered in biting insects as most everything is), or walk in any other direction, but it's impossible to do both and I am the singular cause of my own immobilization, actively working against my own best interest to wallow in regret and pain, before I have even tried! Jesus.
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Gorlax



Registered: 05/06/08
Posts: 6,695
Last seen: 16 days, 21 hours
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Sounds deep and poetic lol. I'm sure everyone can relate on your fear of failure. The truth is you will suck at things in life and you will fail at things. Notice how the worlds greatest athletes are usually not very bright. It's what you put training/practice into that counts. You also have to just think positive and just keep going.
I know you've heard it a million times but you need to do what you love. This has always kind of made me think like , ok, well I don't love working so if I don't work then I'll love life. Then you realize you have to work and that the only way to get passed this boxed system is to do what you love for work. The position I'm at I surely can't do that right now. I graduated with the degree I've always wanted but in my field you aren't really there until you've proven yourself in the field.
I'm assuming you had to move somewhere for a new job? If that job is going to progress in your life just do it. If you miss friends save money and plan a trip back. you can look forward to that trip while you work. If we never had weekends we would almost all just fold in and die. The work week only works because we have the weekend to look forward to.
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Icyus
KavitārkikasiṃHa



Registered: 11/07/13
Posts: 3,502
Loc: Inbetween.
Last seen: 8 years, 28 days
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Quote:
OrgasmicBanana said: Failures are inevitable and necessary -- It's been talked through my ears until the meaning was lost. so many times but it never sinks in. I have shown some courage, taken some risk. I have taken a different path, radical but so pedestrian. Bold maybe, but now it seems so feeble. So typical.
Fear of failure has petrified me. It's a pattern, constantly cropping up in my life. To throw away a great job and everyone I ever knew, give up my career and move 2,000 miles away was easy. The actual challenge is overcoming the fear I generated from it: the ever present thought of dragging myself back home, beaten, broke, proving my dreams foolish and my ideals naive. Indulging in the fear itself is the only likely way I will fail, yet I cling to it in my heart, and my rational thoughts bounce around uselessly in my head. I didn't expect any fantasy of painless transition, believe me. My new environment, my new life, kicked me in gut so hard I can barely breath, the change is so utterly complete. In a new, oddly sideways world, I probe the darkest caverns of my mind to uncover my deepest fears, in the shade of a palm tree on a picturesque tropical afternoon. Everything beautiful has taken on a sinister slant and I'm always on edge. The only familiar things are McDonald's signs and the commentary in my head, a play by play of each possible failure, my self doubt.
My fear is like this stupid palm tree, I can either hold on to the trunk(likely covered in biting insects as most everything is), or walk in any other direction, but it's impossible to do both and I am the singular cause of my own immobilization, actively working against my own best interest to wallow in regret and pain, before I have even tried! Jesus.
Lemme tell yall little secret: there is no failiure. Only progress, and life takes some fucked up roads sometimes, but we apt to nd up right eventually.
-------------------- And thus begins the reverse-fusing of our one-dimentional understanding, and adds ever-expanding perspectives, in depth and number; splitting our perception, and in so doing, seemingly irrationally, creates yet more one-ness, with all that ever was, is and will ever be, streching across the infinite, inunderstood concept of everything, percievable and not.
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ATXfungi
Mycology Student


Registered: 02/28/15
Posts: 74
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Quote:
OrgasmicBanana said: my rational thoughts bounce around uselessly in my head
Don't despair. The mind is sometimes very unwieldy but you are the one in control. Anyone who is just beginning meditation will tell you that they cannot seem to control their thoughts, that those thoughts come and go seemingly of their own fruition and force themselves on the mind. It is not so, you are in control. The same mental loops that repeat thoughts of fear can be trained to repeat any thought you want. It will take practice, just as meditation. Over weeks and months you can change your internal dialogue. Practice will strengthen your mind. Be patient with yourself but be fierce. Don't let thoughts of fear spiral unchallenged. Put on the gloves! Meet every fearful thought with fire.
I've dealt with several personal fears. Here are two tools I use for my fire:
The first is an idea from the Dalai Lama. It is a pair of questions: Can you do anything about it? Will you do anything about it?
When presented with any fear there are only two possibilities. Either you can do something about the fear or you cannot. From that point there are only three options.
Option 1)If you can't do anything about it then stop wasting your time worrying about it.
Option 2) You can do something about it and you choose not to. There's still no need to worry, it was your conscious choice not to do anything about the fear.
Option 3) You can do something about it and you will do something about it. Once again there is no need to fear; you're already well along the path to resolving the issue.
The second tool is fear setting. I came across it in a book by Tim Ferris. Here's an article with the three steps to fear setting and a couple of examples.
http://www.businessinsider.com/tim-ferriss-on-exercise-to-overcome-fears-2015-4
The butterflies never go away, they just begin to fly in formation.
-------------------- “We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don't have books, don't fuck them.”-John Waters “Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.”-Ray Bradbury "The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."-Nietzsche "There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew."-Marshall McLuhan
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once in a lifetime
sun child



Registered: 02/12/15
Posts: 1,807
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Re: Fear of failure [Re: ATXfungi]
#21761788 - 06/04/15 01:51 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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too many options actually can be a real issue. . . some studies have shown this. . .
just to be aware of it, goes a long way toward removing it as an obstacle,
so it doesn't have that effect on you.
(will reply later on in the discussion as well)
-------------------- Innocent, Oldfield & Hegerland Julia Delaney, Bothy Band Rasta Girl, Sister Carol Genesis, Jorma K I Wish You Peace, Lawrence Laughing Do Your Thing, Moondog large . . music garden . . veryall peace them hiStarhouse - main Time Traveler's Guide
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