Feeding My Ignorance

Its not the first time that I have been 'inspired' to post something in the blog as result of an idea planted in my head by the theme of a service at church. The last one was all about making mistakes - this time I am thinking about the way we deal with "Triumph and Tragedy".

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In some respects my thinking on this mirrors the words of Rudyard Kipling:

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

For those unfamiliar with the quote, it comes from the poem "If..." where Kipling lists things that makes one a "Man" - things that are uncommon, but together are a collection of abilities that make you stand out from the crowd (in a good way!) and will enable a "life well lived"! It is, of course, easy to argue with the content (or the completeness) of this list of "virtues", however much of it is undoubtedly good advice.

However, my thinking went a bit beyond "just" treating the "two impostors" the same.

Those who are familiar with my outlook on life - much of which has been outlined in previous posts to this blog under the "worldview" category - will not be surprised to read that my attitude to dealing with these two extremes is 'simply' to view them as "part of the plan" - although if it really is something at the extremes then it is likely that it will be an unforeseen (and probably mysterious) part of the plan!!

More than once during the service it was said that we are rarely at the extremes - the highs and lows of our life tend to be more akin to foothills than mountainous. When seen only with respect to the "local" understanding they can be much exaggerated - how often do you remind a child that some minor event is "not the end of the world". To the child, at that moment in time, losing their favourite pencil may well be the worst thing that has ever happened to them!! However, the parent - with greater experience and a much wider view of the importance of events - can soothe them and make them understand that they will soon have a new favourite pencil.

It is, perhaps, easier to find examples of people "over reacting" to negative events than it is to find examples of the opposite - but they do exist. We have all been guilty of exaggerating achievements - of misunderstanding the true value of what has been done. Of course it is good to praise someone who has managed to excel at something - however, unlike the "lost pencil situation" where any parent would try to minimise the importance of the event, in the case of achievements we do often make the mistake of going just a bit OTT. This, I would argue is almost as harmful as over-egging the disappointments in life.

All these things need to be "put in context" - there needs to be some recognition - both with successes and failures - that these are relative to the "norm" - and that the "norm" is not the same for everyone!

In terms of the "negative" it is never very hard to identify someone who is "worse off" than you are - the very ease with which we can usually do that indicates just how far down the "universal list" our woes tend to be. It is only human nature to think that our own personal worries/troubles/injuries/illnesses are much worse than everyone else's. My toothache was much worse than your's... I broke my leg in THREE places... We love to revel in just how bad our personal lot is!!

If you switch to thinking in terms of those worse than you, it has to have a bit of a positive effect - sort of - if they can cope then why shouldn't I?

With this viewpoint a "disaster" or "tragedy" will no longer seem quite so bad.

Now you might think - that doesn't apply the same to the "triumphs" - why should we look for those who have had "greater" triumphs - won't that just put a damper on our feelings of achievement and our happiness at success. I would argue that it doesn't - when put into context!!

If you simply accept that you are wonderful there is no reason to continue to advance. If you have achieved a music grade or a judo belt or passed a school exam then you have done brilliantly, BUT, its not the end of the road of achievement. There is the next grade to aim for, the black belt, the PhD - there is ALWAYS something more to aim at. By all means celebrate the achievement as long as you bear in mind that we can always get better at everything we do - it is extremely rare to be perfect!!!!

This brings me round to the main point of the blog - our own personal "triumphs" and "disasters" are (very) rarely worthy of the label when put into the context of the whole world. You can always (or as near as makes no difference) find something that surpasses the triumph or is much worse than the disaster. Traversing the foothills of our life path we should continue to be aware of the hills and mountains in the distance that others are having to climb.

Conversely, there are many people who look at the "hills" - and see "mountains"!! A little inconvenience is dealt with as if it were the end of the world!! This is certainly not conducive to retaining low levels of stress. It is almost the complete opposite of the "things happen" attitude that I think that I manage to exhibit most of the time. How often do we see footballers react in spectacular fashion to a tiniest bit of contact - the culture is to "draw fouls" - to "con the referee" into thinking it is more serious than it really was. In some other sports the opposite is true - you carry on regardless of the extent of your injury - I am reminded of Monty Python's Black Knight's "It's just a flesh wound"!! That is the comedic equivalent to what I am suggesting is the best way to deal with life's ups and downs.

There is another aspect to this, one which was not really touched upon in the church service, and one that (once again) will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed my previous thinking. "Triumph" and "disaster" are often two sides of the same coin - a game of chess results in triumph for one player and disaster for another (OK... I admit it could also be a stalemate, but even there the weaker player may well see that as a triumph!!). The disaster could also be a necessary part of a later triumph.

This can be a difficult concept for people to grasp. The idea that any form of suffering could be a necessary part of achievement - for yourself or others - is not one that sits easily with many people. Yet plenty of examples can be found where something "negative" is required to produce something "positive". It is, of course, equally true that short term gain can lead to long term loss. So the seemingly "positive" achievement can lay the foundations for a devastating "negative" at some later date.

To deal with that it is, in my humble opinion, necessary to take Kipling's advice to heart (if at a rather deeper level than the superficial meaning that most would ascribe to it) by not only treating the "two impostors" the same, but by avoiding any such glib categorisation altogether. Life will inevitably have its "ups and downs" but these are relative measurements not absolute. For the waitress earning the minimum wage discovering that her back balance was £100,000 would be a huge "up" - for a typical premier league footballer, I suspect that such a small bank balance would be seen as rather a disaster.

Everything happens for a purpose. Sometimes that purpose is clear - although even when that is the case it is quite likely that there are other "purposes" that are not quite so clear as 'purpose' should have "multi-" in front of it. How often have you heard the phrase "unintended consequences" within this blog? Every action has consequences, and just a minority of them will be the consequences that are intended. So it is with "triumphs" and "disasters" - the 'obvious' consequence is labelled as a triumph, or a disaster, the myriad other consequences escape our notice.

Some of our "greatest" triumphs and disasters in the past have (arguably) resulted in long term effects that fell on the opposite side of the divide - that happens at a personal level, at a community level, at all levels. On a personal level, all the past events - good and bad - that have affected my own life in one way or another have left me in the place that I now am - all of them are necessary for me to be where I am - even those that were 'disasters' - small and slightly bigger (I am not aware of anything in my life that qualifies for the term disaster really!) - have contributed to who I am. Life's lessons if you like.

So, when a 'triumph' or a 'disaster' comes along - how do you deal with it? By understanding that there is a reason for it and by trying to not let if affect you any more than it already has!!! Its easy - or at least easier - to build on successes than to learn from those events that have pulled us down. The principle is, however, the same. We must look for the lessons to be learned and, if there is any change that we can make to make the next success greater, or to make the next failure less, then we should try to make that change.

I need to add that, just because I have stated that "everything happens for a reason" that does not mean that I subscribe to the view that nothing can be influenced or changed. We all make choices every day and these are bound to affect whatever happens in the future. This, looking at it from a different perspective, is something that I have addressed in previous blog posts.

I have touched on the notion that everyone only ever makes correct decisions - it is only in retrospect that it is possible to see our own mistakes - and I have also discussed the fact that having the ability to go back and change any of those decisions is, on the balance of probability, not a good thing. The latter - the foolishness of spending time wishing "if only" - is applicable regardless of the desirability of the outcome. If you sit an exam, you will do the best that you can on that day, in those circumstances - the mark that you get 98%, 57% or 31% - anything - is an inevitable outcome of what you do on the day. The first may be viewed as a triumph - the last as a disaster - but what next?

Doesn't matter what the mark is, the aim is to examine what was done well, what was not done well and do things better the next time. Don't imagine that there are no lessons to be learned from a mark of 98% - aside from the "what happened to the other 2%" question that I would be tempted to ask ;-) - it may be appropriate to look at how you got that mark. I had a friend at University - in the particular course we were doing we didn't get sight of our precise mark, we were simply graded, so I have no way of knowing how we compared exam to exam.

We both graduated with the degree - so we both achieved our "triumph" - it was clear, however, that his came at a considerable cost in terms of stress, worry, hard work, sleepless nights and so on - none of which I was particularly afflicted with!! From his point of view, he could look at that triumph and say "in future I can achieve my goals without the payment in terms of my quality of life in the lead up to the exam". Our peer group had no qualms about his ability to get the degree, so the pressure he was putting on himself was clearly detrimental to his health - with no discernible payback! Here is an example where the so-called 'triumph' may have come at a cost that was unsustainable. So even a great triumph should yield lessons for the future - even if only how to repeat it!!

Finally, there is a sort of footnote - this is not directly about dealing with the ups and downs of life - it is more about the "lessons learned" bit after they have happened.

It is terribly attractive to look and see what we did that resulted in the outcome that presented itself. We must not forget that many times the outcome is decided by what we did NOT do in the lead up to the event. NOT doing something may be a conscious decision or it may be an ommision and it is important to understand the difference.

I recall a friend (many years ago) who fell out with me because I was (allegedly) ignoring them. On examining my behaviour it was clear that my actions could be seen like that - however, I had made no conscious decision to ignore that friend - but equally I had made no real effort to contact them. This is a simplistic example, however it illustrates an instance where my actions were interpreted as deliberate, whilst the reality was that the mistake on my part was one of omission - I just hadn't done anything - and in the circumstances that was a bad choice!! (even though it was in fact no choice at all!!)

We must always be careful about what we are not doing. Its easy to miss - and, of course, there are millions of things that we are not doing all the time. One or two of those millions may just be rather important. Contacting that friend you haven't seen for a few days/weeks/ months; taking a break from work; delegating tasks to those more suited to carrying them out; saying "Thank You" to someone. There are myriad things that we might need to do that we omit to do.

So, in summary, things happen which will have good or bad effects on us - once they have happened we simply need to deal with the new situation as best we can - it is fine to bask in the glory for a short time, or to hang on to the grief - but as the saying goes "life goes on" - and the only situation that is worth dealing with is the one that you currently find yourself in. No "if only"s - no sense of having reached the pinnacle - just "how can we make the best of today's situation".