What If You Weren't Allowed To Fail?
There is no shortage of prompts to encourage us toward some form of reflective action. From, "What if you only had six months to live?" to "What would you do if you were given ten million dollars?", we are not want for life-clarifying thought experiments. While intended to be illuminating, what these prompts lack is any impression of our own accountability within the urgency presented.
The six-months-to-live prompt hinges on an externally-provisioned expiration date to which we're likely to respond with some degree of frivolity. The ten-million-dollars prompt might be even less productive in that it very bluntly requires no effort from the recipient.
Along these same lines is that of, "What would you do if you couldn't fail?" More useful on the surface, its built-in contingency that is a perfect outcome regardless of the quality of inputs renders it less than effective.
Sustained, considered action requires a more pointed prompt: What if you weren't allowed to fail? Now, before the mere notion of this floods our minds with images of stress and overwhelm if pursued unhealthily, it serves us to remember that, as Marcus Aurelius reminds us, nature gives us nothing that we cannot bear. We also get to decide what failure looks like, as loosely or as specifically as we deem useful.
What this phrasing forces is not just clarity in what we want, but clarity in what we're willing to do to get there. We also find useful instruction in this area from Epictetus. "First, tell yourself what you want to be, then act your part accordingly."
What practical steps would you take if you weren't allowed to fail at [insert any pursuit you've deemed worthy, minor or major]? Proceed.
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