<story><title>In a society obsessed with success, how do we come to terms with failure?</title><url>https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/michelle-kaeser-failure-is-golden-too/article37828663/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>lcc</author><text>As another washed-up former athlete (one of my old teammates will be playing in PyeongChang any day now), what resonated most with me was how the author grappled with her self-identity after quitting. It is easy to define yourself when you have a concrete goal and can pour all your time, energy, heart and soul into it. And it is devastating when you lose it.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s even harder to redefine yourself when you used to be &lt;i&gt;good&lt;/i&gt; at whatever it was you lost, because you know just how much time and effort it took to get there. It can seem impossible to achieve the same level of mastery of anything else.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s been almost 5 years since I quit and, while I&amp;#x27;ve picked up new hobbies that I enjoy, I still haven&amp;#x27;t found anything that inspires the passion I used to have for my sport.</text></comment>
<story><title>In a society obsessed with success, how do we come to terms with failure?</title><url>https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/michelle-kaeser-failure-is-golden-too/article37828663/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Intrepidy</author><text>Achilles willingly left Greece, knowing he would die in Troy, so that he could be known as the greatest warrior in history. Alexander the Great supposedly broke down and cried when he felt he had nobody left to overcome. Julius Caesar in turn, after subduing all of Gaul, wept at the feet of Alexander&amp;#x27;s statue some 200 years later, lamenting that at the age of 38, he had accomplished nothing compared to Alexander. And there are plenty of such examples in non-Western societies where the losers didn&amp;#x27;t just get a silver medal; but were killed. This story is as old as humanity itself and just as ubiquitous. I think the fashionable, progressive approach to blaming society is wrong in this case. Seeking greatness over peaceful mediocrity may simply be a character &amp;#x27;flaw&amp;#x27; in mankind. As such, failure has become one of our signature moves.</text></comment>