The reason why I want to fail is the same reason I want to succeed.
Satori, Enlightenment, Nirvana, different names but all the same thing, the experience of enlightenment, if even for a moment.
The state of total bliss and freedom, unity with all things, if you like, God. This is the state that I think everyone wants to experience, and stay in if possible. I can say one thing for sure, once you have tasted it, your whole life is consumed with a desire to return.
Achieving this state is so elusive because it is the polar opposite to normal human life. We all have goals and desires, or simply needs that cannot be avoided. These things clutter our mind with thoughts or fears. A busy mind is never going to enter that blissful state.
I have previously written an article; How Hopelessness Brings Infinite Happiness which discussed this topic, but this morning I had a small realization about a perplexing and persistent issue, my hope of failure.
Anyone who knows me would say that I am a very positive person, filled with hope and adventure to succeed at anything I desire, and this is true. I call myself an optimistic pessimist. I believe that anything I choose to do will succeed but I also look for everything that can go wrong, to be prepared in the event it happens or to take action to prevent it from happening at all. I go forward and usually succeed.
Yet, I also have this background thought to everything I do about it failing, almost with a hope that it fails instead of succeeds. Not only business ventures, but anything that would build something for the future, something long lasting, material or emotional.
Despite this background thought, I proceed and usually succeed, and enjoy it as well because I see the thought of failure for what it is, a strange noise in the background that is not really what I want.
Because I know how the mind works, I write it off to being some past fears or lingering negativity from my parents who are both very negative people, basically something outside of me, and so I hear but ignore it and move forward anyway.
This morning I was reflecting on this negative thought popping up again because a door to a new adventure has opened for me in corporate training yesterday, and I saw the root of the desire to fail.
Satori! I want to be back in that state and what prevents it is activity. I can enter the state of bliss quite often, and it happens when I simply give up on all thoughts, hopes, desires and concerns. But if I am active, my mind is so busy, that state is harder to attain.
So many people seek that state of bliss, whatever you want to call it, there is nothing spiritual or religious about it necessarily, it is simply a natural desire to feel totally free and at peace, to breath deeply.
This made me think, so many people fail at their life in general, in achieving their goals, in making money, having a business, or even a decent relationship, and no one can understand why.
Maybe this is the same reason for a lot of people, that we just want to attain that state where we can breath freely, and we know that the more things happening in our life, the further away that state is.
The solution is to have nothing to do, and so, a subconscious desire to fail in everything we do, for the purpose of succeeding in the ultimate goal, presents a confusing conundrum. Give this some thought, maybe you too can find the balance through understanding the reason you desire to fail, and then proceed and succeed with the willingness to let it all go every night when you go to bed.
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