About failure and showing weakness in front of challenge, as well as fear
I recommend you read this link below, very fruitful, even not 100% of my sharing below align with the post:
I am not sure about all culture around the world (I am raised in Hong Kong), but at least I learned this from childhood as well as public culture like in the movies: “It’s a virtue to show braveness and not (easily) being defeated by challenge in front of you ,especially for male”.
What a great virtue, it’s extremely important to not giving up (easily) when we see challenges, I still believe in that.
This was my usual pattern, before trying the challenge, I would first analyse the difficulty of it and potentially design plan of attack, but when things not goes well, there are always this inner voice to ask myself, is it something I can take or should I give up? And another round of analyse would be concerning about how people around would response. I admit I care too much about how other people would think.
The common response regarding my giving up that I got are split, some people would be supporting while in other extreme, other would show disappointment, blaming, questioning (why am I giving up) or teasing me as coward.
It might not necessary be something very important or things at work, might be just getting panic attack while swimming (I swim 1–2 times a week for 1.5 km each time) or fearing or height…
Getting those negative feedback is definitely not feeling good. Ended up that drive a negative cycle in me, to refuse trying to conquer something that is beyond the comfort zone as I fear of BOTH the failure itself (and thus blaming myself) as well as the negative feedback around.
I have my own way to fight back, to keep on doing it even it’s hard (but at some point I considered to retreat), to try not to care too much on what people say, to accept myself failing this time (but not every time).
At certain point, the fight back is frustrating without being able to share to others (as others might feedback in different ways and it feel like gambling to start sharing), and that make me feel alone, even I got others around (close friend, family…).
I believe a lot of like minded feeling the same and craving for support from others but we are too afraid to speak up.
What I now want to do and try to do is, people, for you sharing the same feeling, we speak up, we show support to each other.
#IFailedButIAmNotAlone
