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I just finished reading Wil Wheaton’s latest book Just a Geek. You’ll remember Wheaton from a child-actor career in the movie “Stand by Me” and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Just a Geek tells the story of Wheaton’s failure to transition to a successful adult actor following his time on Star Trek, and how he accepted that failure. From that point he overcame his disappointment and created a new and satisfying life.
It’s a touching and funny book, and I recommend it.
We’ve had a lot of comments on this topic, so I thought I’d bring it back up. I personally have been having trouble at work lately because of the poor state of the US economy. Every few weeks another message comes down from on high reminding the staff that the economy is horrible and budget cuts will be ongoing. This does not do much for morale. No one has been laid off yet, but if they keep reminding us of the possibility paranoia will continue to be the flavor of the day.
I suffer from generalized anxiety and depression, as I am sure do many others. Stress at work is a problem because it takes up so much of my life. I often find it difficult to rise in the morning, prepare, and go to work. When I am there my mood is usually better – it’s almost always better to work than to mope around the house thinking about how awful you feel. For the past month or so this has been a painful reality of my life. Perhaps it’s a sign of a mid-life crisis. I take medication and see a therapist regularly. My mood goes up and down. Sometimes I am relaxed and life is easy. Other times I am miserable. Whichever, my life never reaches the level of pleasure that I would like. At my worst, I feel alone and isolated, ashamed of my failings, and obsessed with past failures. And also of the whining I do, of which this post might be considered a sample.
I’m not exactly sure where I wanted to go with this post, other than to reach out to others who feel the same way, and to remind them that success and failure are relative ideas. The lives of some others will always seem better than ours. We only fail when we give up completely.
If you stop to think about it this statement is highly suspect…it’s like the Wind-Chill factor the meteorologists are so fond of. “The wind makes you feel like the temperature is 12 below zero…if there were no wind!“ “I’d be a better person…if I were a better person!”
Anyway, in the past two weeks I’ve had a variety of failures, mostly linked to a bad mood-swing, which left me wondering how I became the person I am. Who is not exactly the role model we all had when we were kids.
No one grows up with a nebbish for a hero, and when you grow up to become one, you wonder where it all went wrong – where’s that astronaut I was going to be? When I was 8, I thought “It’ll be great when I grow up and all my problems will be over.” What a little schmuck.
I don’t know if people can really change…can the nebbish become the astronaut? It seems unlikely in my case. The basic elements of my personality were shaped in childhood, and although I have made many tries, I have been unable to overcome many of them. My mother once asked me if I thought she was to blame for my personal problems, and I kindly lied to her and said ‘no.’
So here I am left on the road to personal acceptance. This is who I am, and who I will be, barring unforeseen circumstances. I don’t admire myself much, but maybe admiration is a waste of time, and we should all just get on with things the best we can. In my life story, at least, I’ll always be the protagonist, but never the hero.
1890 – United States soldiers kill more than 200 Oglala Lakota men, women, and children with 4 Hotchkiss guns in the Wounded Knee Massacre. (wikipedia)
“The American public’s reaction to the battle at the time was generally favorable.”
Which is, of course, that we all got through it partially sane. As an agnostic party-pooper, the American Failure will put this holiday season in his Success pile and put it behind him. Many cookies were made, much egg-nogg was dedrunkt, and much sleeping in was sleept.
One failure that we have to look out for is basing our opinion of Christmas on how we see people acting in our nation’s fine retail outlets. Although everyone appears to be miserable, that doesn’t mean they aren’t enjoying themselves. And just because the holiday celebrates the birth of a possibly fictitious character born 2008 years ago, and is not anywhere near this person’s actual birthdate, and was blatantly ripped off from pagan holidays, and manages to embrace so much that is the very antithesis of what that man supposedly stood for, that doesn’t mean it isn’t actually sacred.
Yep.
So get on with your lives and try not to over-think it.
http://futility.typepad.com/futility/
Stanford Psychology professor Carol Dweck’s new book, The Effort Effect, explores why some people are motivated by failure, while others are defeated.
1999 – Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura is sworn in as governor of Minnesota.
I was thinking that perhaps I would cite Ventura as a failure as Governor, or the citizens of Minnesota as failures for electing him, but on further reading, I have to admit that Jesse’s failure was to think that the electorate would stand for so much honesty, and that the electorate’s was to think that a straight-talking man could ‘play the game’ of politics, especially to the media.
So here’s to you , Jesse Ventura: a learning experience for all voters and politicians, everywhere.
1864
The Sand Creek Massacre, in which the US Army sent soldiers into an indian encampment, slaughtering 300 indians. The Cheyenne and Arapaho had been given an American flag to prevent such an event from occurring, but an army colonel chose to disregard it.
