How To Not Ignore Your Caped Crusader Potential On A Daily Basis
Okay, the Batman photograph is a bit of a moonshot. Consider the odds — I live in India, and I’ve never stepped outside this country. All my exposure to the international superhero subculture is a direct offshoot of comic books and movies (in that order, thankfully). That indicates two things:
a. I spent a significant part of my childhood identifying as a comic book nerd who was easily fooled by the irresistible charms of Pokemon collectibles, and
b. I’m writing this article in 2019, which means the stories really haven’t left me yet.
Also, DC Universe. But more importantly, Medium.
This piece is about daily failures, daily disappointments, and impending joy. And no, the reason I’ve used a comic book reference is not to add an interesting twist to an otherwise boring article. You see, if you end up deciding that an article about dealing with your failures is boring, you are unwittingly closing the lid on possibilities that you don’t even know exist right now.
So yes, for all make believe purposes, let’s pretend this is a guide to keep the possibility open for you to turn into a superhero (Marvel) or a caped vigilante (DC). Me — I’m more of a Wayne fanatic, personally.
What’s the last thing you failed at?
And we’re talking about both controllable and uncontrollable failures. In the sense that a young Bruce Wayne did uncontrollably fail in the act of having living and breathing parents into his teens. Or in the sense that Alfred Pennyworth “failed” in the closing act of The Dark Knight Rises?
If you take some time out to sit alone and make a list of all the things you’ve ever failed at, it’d be a pretty colorful list, considering you’ve lived a colorful life. In fact, if we started listing down all the little or big things that we as potentially interesting human beings are programmed to fail at, it’d be a pretty exhaustive and rather impressive list.
Ask yourself. Can you possibly fail (controllably or uncontrollably) at:
Specifics:
- Maintaining a steady job?
- Keeping your savings in check?
- Losing ten pounds in a month?
- Going to bed before midnight?
- Finishing a college degree?
- Waking up at 5̶ ̶A̶M̶ ̶7̶ ̶A̶M̶ 10 AM?
- Writing a bestselling piece of YA fiction?
Vague-s:
- Making your mother “happy”
- Finding “purpose” in life by 30
- Getting rid of your laziness
…You get the picture.
And after you’ve exhausted every weird possibility that you can add to your list, ask yourself this.
Do Bruce Wayne’s uncontrollable failures eventually add up to his controllable successes?
That image above is just for effect. Because, Unsplash.
But the message here is 100% real, people. There’s every chance in the world that you’ve built up your dream life based on certain expectations that you’ve had from yourself, and there’s every possibility that you’ve failed against your own personal benchmarks every goddamn time.
But that really does not mean that your failures aren’t adding up to something more worthwhile. Without trying to sound too preachy, let’s briefly nudge upon the notion that you once thought that a particular trajectory (apply this either to your career, your personal relationships, or to your spiritual evolution — if you’re dyeing your beard as you read this) was going to work for you. A phase, if you fancy, where you thought you knew where your life was headed. And then it “all came crashing down”.
Surely, if you’re reading this article at this point in the story, you’ve got to be someone like me, who has had more than one or two of those ‘came crashing down’ experiences up their sleeve, and I’m not thirty…yet. Another year.
Yes, when I first started writing, a part of me, maybe a very tiny little part — but a part nevertheless, may have imagined being on a Top 30 under 30 list, by the time I hit 29. And lately, I’ve been toying around with ideas on convincing myself not to beat myself up too much over this controllable/uncontrollable failure dilemma, because….
Well, Because Bukowski.
See, here’s a man who literally worked for decades at a dead end job in a post office. And then, shortly before he was about to die, wrote this fantastic little thing called ‘Pulp’. For Bukowski fans who haven’t read ‘Pulp’ — If ‘Women’ is the cactus of Hank’s creations, then ‘Pulp’ is twenty seven shots of tequila.
I guess what I am trying to say, while unabashedly attempting to be prolific on Medium on a publication named after my mother, is that…
Maybe your life isn’t supposed to be a checklist. Maybe it’s about what comes after the checklist.
Sure, you may not be a world-changing scientist or a college valedictorian or a booker winning novelist today. Sure, you may have ventured out to follow your dreams a little earlier than what the world was ready for, and sure, you may have experienced roadblocks at every stage, and sure, you may have failed at everything you’ve tangibly attempted to do… so far.
That does not mean you won’t succeed at the next thing you try.
When John Green was in college, YouTube did not exist. As he has explained so many times in his wonderful convocation speeches, if someone had told him in high school that he was going to be a full time YouTube-er, he would’ve responded with “hey… that’s not a word”.
But that’s the thing. What you are truly destined to be great at, might not be a ‘thing’ in the moment, right now. But it doesn’t mean that the universe hasn’t planned it out for you already. Believe that your failures so far are just a form of taxing elimination, because you need to be that sure of not being a painter, writer, or singer, because you might turn out to be the superhero you always deserved to see. On a platform that you’re yet to see.
Makes sense?
Read more whack stuff at https://Medium.com/Neli
