Failure is always an option - unless you're Adam Savage, then this saying is probably bullshit.
I woke up to the news on the radio this morning at 1pm and they've announced "Failure Week" in a school around here. It's all about teaching kids that it's alright to fail. I shit you not.
Humankind has reached a whole new level of decadence. Not only can we order cheese-stuffed pizza on the internet, but now it's okay to stop trying. Because it's cool to fail. Today's PE teachers no longer have a winning and a losing team, everybody hugs and holds hands and scores mean nothing. It's all about the fun and not about winning. Yay. ♥
You're fucking up those kids for life. Think about it - if failing isn't a bad thing and there are no more winners, where's my motivation to even try? The winners are winners, the losers are winners, might as well not give a fuck since it makes no god damn difference. You're raising a generation of complete and utter pussies. And now send those losers out into the real world.
This may sound harsh, it might not be pretty and things would be so much easier if it wasn't true - but here's a fact: Everything in real life is a competition. If you apply for a job, you compete against every single other person applying for the same job - they rate your CV, your qualifications, the way you behave on a possible interview. There is only one winner here and that's the guy who gets the job. And if you really wanted that job and you didn't try hard enough, well... not so fun to fail now, is it?
Even if you actually do get the job, you'll want to keep it, you might even want the occasioal pay raise or a promotion. And these things do or don't happen based on how your efforts measure up against the work of your colleagues. If you fail to at least keep up with the rest of them, it's not just goodbye promotion, but probably goodbye job.
It's not fun to fail, it isn't good to fail and it isn't even socially accepted to fail. Do you like demotivationals? Fail vids on Youtube? Of course you do. People on there fail at things and we gloat about their misfortune. Schadenfreude. To fail is even worse than to simply lose - losing implies that somebody was better, you got outsmarted, but if you fail, you've done it all by yourself, because you sucked at it.
In real life you don't get a trophy if you suck. Call your landlord and tell him that you won't be able to pay the rent, but you tried really hard and you feel you should be rewarded. Tell a girl after 2 minutes of lousy sex that you really tried. They still want a fine if you fail to finish your tax return before the deadline, no matter how hard you try. That whole democracy in the middle east thing didn't really work out, but America should get an A for effort, right?
IT IS NOT OKAY TO FAIL! No free hugs, no trophies, no love for losers. Ever. Stop telling kids it doesn't matter if they fail and it's alright to suck! Yes, of course you'll still love them if they screw up, because you're idiotic parents and you love your kids no matter how ugly, boring and stupid they are. And you should - because somebody has to. But if you teach them that the outcome is always the same, no matter how hard you (don't) try, then something is seriously wrong here.
-Cat
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