I write poetry. I used to write short-stories. I used to. I've often thought about writing short-stories again, but when I sift through my former writings, most of which I made half my current lifetime ago, I give up. What's the use? I'd only try to better myself and nobody would probably read it, and it would be crap. I'd fail.

Or, it could become good. I might soar above my previous writings based on experience both in fields of writing and reading, from how I've hopefully bettered myself over the years and bring more to the table, as it were. I'd succeed!

But really, what is success? And, equally important, what is failure?

In the video below Alain de Botton talks about this matter, which inspired me to write this post; in said video, he regurgitates à‰mile Durkheim on how suicide rates are higher in societies where people generally believe that success is solely achieved through the individual's hard work, and that failure is solely met because of the individual's inadequacy/incompetence; in my mind, this way of thinking develops very a polarised society often marred by stereotypical and prejudiced thinking, as I believe there are other factors involved in both success and failure.

Thanks, Peter, for sharing the video through Google Reader.

At 12:23 in the video, de Botton talks about how we believe we know what success means. To paraphrase his words: if somebody were to say "behind this screen there is a successful man", we already form a somewhat ready-made image of this man; my own prejudice leads me to believe something good about him, something like "here's a man who's successful because of his own hard work". In reality, I don't know what "successful" means. Could be the man has a lot of money due to inheritance, which in no way means he used his skills to amass his fortune. So, it is now time to review some semantics.

I believe that success and failure are judgments that should be based on two simple factors:

• If one is at all to be able to succeed at something, it must be attainable. E.g. "Today I'll try to purchase salad for lunch" is - for me - an attainable goal as I know where I most likely can get hold of salad, my lunch schedule allows me to go and buy it within a certain amount of time, I have enough money to buy it, and there are no outside factors that may hinder me. However, if I were to set "Today I'll physically travel to another solar system" as my goal,

You can't be successful at everything. Any level of success must bring an explanation on what we may lose out on, i.e. how you fail in a certain field.

• Failure may not always be a bad thing. I think many people are deathly afraid of failing, which I think lays so heavy on them that it may be what leads to failure to begin with. Imagine getting involved in a project where attendance brings a 99% risk of failure; you'd most likely fail, but does it really mean the end of you? Really?

Failing brings to my mind the old saying of "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger" to mind, and certainly this is a glass-is-half-full way of looking at it.

All in all: I will probably get around to write something more than poetry soon enough. If it turns crap, then so what? I'd hate to look back upon my life with "oh, I wish I'd tried that" as my last words.

Finally, on de Botton, who has written "How Proust can change your Life", the following is a little excerpt of how Marcel Proust viewed the possibilities and at the same time the wastefulness of humanity;

Related articles

• Alain de Botton on unfortunates and losers (blogs.ft.com)
• Alain de Botton: You'll regret those words until your dying day (telegraph.co.uk)