The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: failure

  • Permission to Fail

    A friend of mine had been in a dark place for many, many years. He had been struggling with addiction, depression, and isolation. I had been worried about him for quite some time. And then slowly, little by little, over the course of a year, I started to notice positive changes in him. He got…

  • EARN Your Misery

    There are very few things that irritate me as much as watching people wallowing in their own misery and doing nothing to get out of it. There are a lot of awful situations in this world, and many of us have every right to be miserable. But if the universe is lobbing rotten tomatoes at…

  • Please Like Me

    I work with someone who doesn’t hide the fact that she doesn’t like me at all. Her perception of who I am is so far from my actual motivations that it baffles me. It’s as if when she looks at me she sees someone else entirely, and that person is despicable. It’s a shame, too,…

  • The Thing About IQ

    I know a boy who despairs because his IQ isn’t as high as he’d like it to be. He thinks he’s doomed to failure. He thinks he’s stupid. I heard in passing on NPR today (sorry, couldn’t tell you who said it or on which program) that IQ is not as good an indicator of…

  • Sibling Estrangement

    I was just reading about Drew Barrymore’s reaction to her half-sister being found dead near San Diego. “Although I only met her briefly, I wish her and her loved ones as much peace as possible and I’m so incredibly sorry for their loss.” I just love Drew. She has always struck me as a decent,…

  • I’m Confident You’ll Want to Read This

    The other day I saw Katty Kay and Claire Shipman being interviewed on the Colbert Report. They were talking about their new book, The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance – What Women Should Know. It was a really fascinating discussion, and although I have not read the book yet, I plan to.…

  • How “Little Mary Sunshine” Looks from the Darkside

    A friend of mine recently posted a meme on her Facebook page that said “Slow progress is better than no progress.” My first thought was, “Great. That would be comforting if I were making slow progress.” The fact is, I have felt as though I haven’t moved forward in years. If anything, I’ve been sliding…

  • Exercises in Futility

    I used to know a guy who would crash into things every time he entered a darkened room. I mean, every single time. So one day with the lights on, I asked him to move through the room as if the lights were off. He strode in no differently than he would if the lights…

  • The Dark Side of Achievement

    I’ve always been a huge success in the academic world. Top of my class. The envy of my peers. So everyone, including me, assumed I’d be a huge success in the real world as well. I’m fairly certain my mother believed I’d be the CEO of a fortune 500 company by the time I was…

  • The Man Who Has Everything

    I know a millionaire. He’s a good businessman; in fact, he’s hyper-successful. He came from humble beginnings and has had to hustle to get to the top, but hustle he did. No one can say he hasn’t worked very hard to get where he is. He knows how to read people. A charming fellow, he’s…