The other day I read something on the Internet that hit me hard: “The way to have an amazing life is to be constantly fearing failure, but driving forward anyway.” Otherwise – the American author goes on – you are actually becoming increasingly useless. “If you are not doing your life’s work, you will feel perfectly comfortable.” OK! That’s me right there. Not productive, not awesome. Just comfortable enough. Not doing my life’s work (what ever that means). Dying actually.
I admire you, America. Your people are driven, they never stop. Forward. Future. Moon. Taking the plunge. Innovation. No saturation, no satisfaction. Forward once more. You are not living the dream, you are chasing it. Happiness is no reality, it needs to remain a promise. And the comfort zone is nothing you ought to be in. Stretch goals keep you fit. If anyone will make it out of the current bottomless pit of debt it’s your people, America. You are not driven by discontent or deficiency. You are driven by optimism. Because: Yes you can! And I have seen it at work. It’s amazing, it’s intimidating. And it’s changing the world. America: You’ll be back!
I am probably the exact opposite. As a typical German I am only driven – if at all – when I miss something. A pursuit of happiness is bizarrely unattractive to me. Instead I want to be happy. And the worst thing might be that I am happy. My coach calls it Self Acceptance. The concept of being loving and happy with who you are now. It’s a no brainer: Everybody should be in love with themselves and if possible with all the other 7 billion people on earth, too. Larry David – too long tortured by not being a good golfer – reminded me that “Acceptance was the final stage of grief that terminal patients experience before dying, the others being Anger, Denial, Bargaining, and Depression.” I am already at the final stage and I am convinced that infancy and adolescence are there to deal with the first four. Grow up, America! We are all terminal but you just won’t accept that.
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A young person who doesn’t want to be an artist has no heart. An old person who still wants to be an artist is a fool. Right now I am somewhere in the middle. Back then when I looked for my spot in the creative world I turned to writing. The least of all arts. Because I was too lazy to properly learn an instrument and I sucked at painting as a young man. What has come off of the writing? Really not too much. America: You might be right in some way: All this acceptance leads to sweet mediocracy. How can I be a good writer if I lack any grain of self-hatred? What is there to write about when there is no conflict within myself? I honestly don’t know. And I am fine with that. Time will tell. Maybe one day it will jump right at me. In the meantime I’ll keep living my life, try to keep it interesting, honest and interlaced with love.
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In the worst writer’s scenario I will be no one anyone has ever heard of. I won’t suck at expressing myself in written form. But maybe no one wants to pay money for it. And why would I want that? It’s fine: The couch, two or three social networks, writing my blog and nothing left to wish for. Buddhism, if you will. America, give me a break! I am working hard, I am working out in the gym even harder and sometimes I have to go food shopping and take care of other mundane stuff on the weekends. You want me to be awesome as well? Awesome my ass. I have some barbecue to take care of.
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“Death to every one is gonna come” reads one of my favorite song lines. Doesn’t that put all this brilliant awesome bullshit in perpective? So I guess I congratulate these driven people and I welcome their commitment to improve themselves and turn the world into a better hell. I for one think it’s actually all too busy and noisy anyway. If you really want to make it count then you should forget about all this conventional success and do your own thing. It might be just smoking pot and doing nothing or climbing a mountain, writing a novel, taking pictures, diving with the sharks or getting angry and joining a revolution. What ever makes you happy. America: You are great, but constantly fearing failure is definitively not my recipe for an “awesome” life. I am now into sustainable things but it seems to be certain that we are going to overheat as an entire biosphere. The least I can do myself is trying to keep cool as long as I can.
Gilbert Dietrich, internet manager, coach and philosopher extraordinaire, blogs about life, psychology and what it all means on www.geistundgegenwart.de
Stay tuned for the wrath of the driven in the second part of this guest blogging experiment … and tell us, what you think!
As an entire biossphere we are going to overheat
3 Comments
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“You are not living the dream, you are chasing it.” – That really does bring new perspective to the concept of “the pursuit of happiness.” As an American, I actually think this drive is diminishing into something different…the hard work of previous generations is translating into a sense of entitlement for the younger, who simply don’t possess the same roll-up-your-sleeves work ethic because they’ve had it relatively easy so far. That said, I also see Americans still working themselves into the ground with only 2 weeks of vacation on average and working overtime during the other 50. I’m always hoping that some day the population in general will cozy right up in the middle of those extremes, stop to smell the roses, as they say, but also enjoy the feeling of self-satisfaction that comes from good, honest work. Then again, being from the Midwest, that’s more like the climate I did grow up in. New York and LA tend to shape a lot of perceptions of American neuroses, but there’s a big in-between of laid-back and just plain decent folks who work hard but play hard that I wish the rest of the world could know better.
When I read that quotation in the opening paragraph, though, my immediate response was from a teacher’s perspective, not an American’s, because that’s the one role I’ve served that doesn’t allow for any semblance of a comfort zone if you want to be truly great at it. Self-reflection and improvement are essential every minute of the day—the day you think you’re awesome at it is the day you become complacent—and the bursts of few-and-far-between gratitude and actually seeing growth in others and myself is a very pure form of happiness that I have gotten to live in, not just anticipate. So in that respect, perhaps it depends on the pursuit—if the chasing is always just for one’s own satisfaction, trying to grab that elusive happiness and never feeling it might be pointless. But if it’s about pushing ahead to achieve something that’s about more than just one’s self, then it’s worthwhile.
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Gilbert! Hmm. I can’t decide if you are too optimistic about America or too cynical. I’ve been leaning toward the latter a lot lately, so I can’t really relate to the optimism (if that’s what it is). Here’s my perspective as an American Germanist: Germans have long had a love-hate relationship with America, deriding and dismissing it on the one hand (“it’s a young country, with no history or culture of its own … it’s too shallow … it’s unjust and hypocritical … it’s arrogant”) and idolizing it on the other, as a land of possibility and opportunity. Ever since the 18th century, German writers have treated America as the place you can go to start over and reinvent yourself. Judith Herrmann and Bernhard Schlink are just two contemporary authors of texts in which Germans on the great American road trip (why does that ring a bell?) learn something about themselves and start anew. But here’s what I think: America is sliding into mediocrity. Europeans should stop looking at America as some sort of model or tabula rasa and find their own solutions to their crises.
I also think that Germany should bite the bullet and save Europe. Just do it already.
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Two American teachers commenting my post! What are the odds? How nice anyway. Thank you for your thoughts.
Interesting distinction between the coasts and the middle. It’s true – for us here America is either SF or NY (or all-in-one L.D.). But it’s not and I remember now from my travels through the Midwest, South and North. I agree – we should get to know them better.
You both seem of the opinion that America is sliding back somehow. I don’t blieve that. I think it’s the almighty media that have you believe that (the media is America’s worst problem). Sure, there is a very real crisis and also Schadenfreude in the world, especially in Germany about a crumbling super power.
But the things about optimism and America here – I mean them. I recently heard Gumbrecht talking about that (Len – I’ll send you the Link, it’s in German) and he is right: America’s innovative industry is still there and stronger than ever. The ideas that are currently being worked on (green energy, internet technology, all kinds of bio/chemo/physical innovations) will ensure a new bloom. Maybe two other regions in the world are as well equipped for the next chapter after this world wide crisis as America is. But America has this great mentality, they won’t be beaten down. I’ve seen that at work for 6 years in Google. It was hard to keep up for a German soul. But it was energizing, too and left me with no doubt about America’s positive future.
There might be too much optimism though, that’s preventing people from learning from a crisis. Crisis is opportunity, I’ve heard them say. Yes, but it’s also a crisis. And we need to prevent them in order to not unnecessarily harm people.
Now you have Obama who is fitting the current world order better than any previous president I know. Unfortunately his work is suffering from an economical crisis that was long in the making. In case he’ll make another term he will go down in history as one of the greatest.
If I would have to bet, I’d bet on America.
“But if it’s about pushing ahead to achieve something that’s about more than just one’s self, then it’s worthwhile.” Well said, Fallen Monkey! Let’s go on then.