Predestination.
Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?
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Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?
#22I just remember God does not exist, and thus my failures are not due to an hidden goal.
Then I breath.
I remember that keeping faith is about accepting failures : there is no win if there is no risks.
Fear and anxiety kills the spirit. I know they are direct consequences of failures, and I accept them. It does not mean I let fear rule my life.
Then, I remember our wold is about luck. So, I plan my next try at doing something, and I look back at my failures to see what valuables lessons I learned.
Basically they boil down to: work hard, keep it simple, and don't get tricked again in investing your time/money/energy/emotions in stuff that don't make you feel good. Love your self and who you are not a cool picture built for being accepted by others. Life is no popularity contest.
Failures taught me I can rise again. Success taught me it is all about luck. Failures and success taught me that the only way to potentially win is to try again.
And why do I try that much? Because, well, it is in my Nature, and the more the competition is unfair like nowadays, the more it makes me want to defy the odds because I am bored.
I don't know what your motivations are, I just know mine.
But failures should have taught you a great load of things you can use to understand your true self and empower it.
Failures are so valuable I regret not having failed when I was younger. There is a curse in being lucky, I am glad my curse was lifted.
Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?
#23I'm not sure that failure is the word you want - I would call them setbacks. Failure suggests finality, it is the point where you are out of options and have to change goals. Overcoming failure means how to restart on a new goal after giving up on the last one. Overcoming setbacks means how to stay focused on a goal despite interference and things not happening as you hope.
My simplest answer is to pick the right goal. You know its the right goal when you can envisage countless possible setbacks but it would seem absurd that they could cause you to abandon your goal. Give up on reaching the Olympics because you run out of money, have a bout of flu, or a parent dies? It should feel like a non-sequitur. Your goal needs rise above the inevitable twists and turns of life - it should not just be a "fair weather" goal you would drop when clouds pile in.
Your interest in the goal should be deep. It should not be for the moment it can be said it is done but for the transformation that achieving that goal brings. You must not simply want to reach a finish line, you have to want the life that comes after crossing that finishing line. If life after reaching a goal is little different or you are indifferent to that life, it is a weak goal, it won't sustain you through the hard times.
Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?
#24For me, I think Ive usually founds this to be (slightly) the wrong question. Inspiration has been about being in a state of mind to find, recognise or just decide it's there.
Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?
#25Life isn't solvable, only livable. Some later "successes" require previous "failures". It's part of the whole life.
Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?
#26Life isn't solvable, only livable. Some later "successes" require previous "failures". It's part of the whole life.
Some "successes" may lead to "failures" too.
Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?
#27What else can you do? If you have a target or want to achieve something, the only option available is to try again. What helps me is knowing that I have people who care deeply for me,and who I care for just as much. I could quit, but, given all my blessings and the support I have, I wouldn't be able to face myself if I quit. I've had / survived some very difficult times (borderline starvation, seen my partner pass aw…
>"To paraphrase Churchill, "you can always count on humanity to do the right thing after it has tried everything else"
The quote is actually:
"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities."
But of course the same sentiment can be generalized for any group. Even though Churchill is credited there is no actual record or evidence of him ever saying this. And he likely never did.
I'm not trying to nitpick, but as big Churchill fan I only found this out fairly recently and so thought I would mention it :)
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives...
Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?
#28What else can you do? If you have a target or want to achieve something, the only option available is to try again. What helps me is knowing that I have people who care deeply for me,and who I care for just as much. I could quit, but, given all my blessings and the support I have, I wouldn't be able to face myself if I quit. I've had / survived some very difficult times (borderline starvation, seen my partner pass aw…
>"To paraphrase Churchill, "you can always count on humanity to do the right thing after it has tried everything else" The quote is actually: "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities." But of course the same sentiment can be generalized for any group. Even though Churchill is credited there is no actual record or evidence of him ever saying this. And…
> But of course the same sentiment can be generalized for any group.
I wonder whether this is a fair statement, as the original quote can be interpreted to mean that the group in question has terrible efficiency and/or is unreliable until their hand is forced.
Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?
#29Life isn't solvable, only livable. Some later "successes" require previous "failures". It's part of the whole life.
Some "successes" may lead to "failures" too.
All successes lead to failures, and all failures lead to successes. No one moment in life can be completely disjointed from any other. The only finality is when life ends, and even that can be philosophically extended through the effect one has on those to come.
Re: Ask HN: What inspires you to persevere through adversity?
#30Having kids helps. You feel this sort of obligation to stay positive and stay enough above water (financially, emotionally, etc) to support them.
I wonder how differently I might approach things had I never started a family.