Tuesday, June 30, 2009


I think I thought I had a some kind of a strategy for not being a looser. I think I thought that if I didn’t compete directly I couldn’t be a looser. If I made my own criteria for success I could be in control of the game and not suffer the humiliation off not measuring up. Or of being bested. Or I could avoid the whole possibility of direct comparison. And thus the shame and risk of being found inadequate to the task. If I created my own rules of success, made my own goals and objectives, lived out my own hopes and dreams, than my success or failure would be somehow securely concealed. My creativity in making my own valuations was impressive and resourceful, But this grand strategy had some fatal flaws. The most important being that I had not considered I could defeat myself. That I could be my own worst enemy. That my own perfectionism could be a harsher test than what I might have encountered had I played the games at hand. And then there is this: by my own rules, my defeat is completely un-transferable. I can’t blame it on anyone else. I think, in retrospect, that if I had not been so afraid to loose or be defeated in direct competition, I might have actually come to more success. There may have been competitions I could have won. Some won: some lost. I think some things would have turned out very differently if I would not have been so afraid to test myself against others. And there is this: Had I accepted the risk of direct competition by the standards at hand, I would also be able to accept the outcome as valid. Whereas, by my own standards I am left wondering about the validity of my measures.

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