Pushing Through

Eugene Wallingford just recently wrote this blog about embracing failure. The topic is one I often think about because it is an area I feel I tend to excel in above others. Thus, I thought I would provide my own opinion on the matter.

First off, when Wallingford says, "what other people call failure is learning to fly," he is wrong. According the analogy he is running with, failure is hitting the ground after jumping off a cliff. Taking the chance at hitting the ground in an effort to learn to fly is the same as risking failure in an effort to succeed. Just thought I'd throw that out there at the start.

My personal thoughts are it is not about embracing failure. Instead, it is about pushing through the failure until I finally reach success. That's why I did not title this "embracing failure" as Wallingford did. When I am struggling with a programming problem, I always define it to my friends as "beating my head against the wall." Please note that only occasionally am I actually beating my head against the wall. It is a fight. When I come up with a solution that does not work, it frustrates me further. If I never figured out a working solution, I would be left in a state of extreme frustration. This is one reason I rarely finish a programming problem unfinished for another day. It will irritate me and distract me from everything I do until I finish it. There is no embracing the problem. There is only beating it into submission.

What drives me to continue endure such aggravations? In some respects, it is about the struggle itself, but I intend to devote a full post to this idea someday so I will skip it for now. Ultimately, it is the euphoria after achieving success which keeps me going. The more frustrating problems are the most rewarding to conquer. I have been known to take off running down the hallway in my dorm yelling in excitement after discovering a working solution. It is because of this that I claim it is not about embracing the failure, but rather pushing through it.

My determination to excel is not only evident in programming. In high school, it was not uncommon for me to spend a couple hours out in 100 degree heat hitting a shopping cart full of tennis balls by myself just to work on a few shots. When I was in late elementary and early middle school, I would be out in my driveway shooting hoops quite literally until it was so dark I could not see the basket anymore. When I run or bike, particularly with long distances, I always end up going faster as I progress. It is not that I start off too slow, but rather that I become charged with the idea of reaching the finish line. In my Personal Wellness class just week, we had to jog a half-mile. I found myself almost sprinting by the last 200m. While playing videogames, I will repeat a particular task over and over again until I can finally beat it. Last year, it took me ten hours to be the final bonus mission on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on the hardest difficulty. The mission was a maximum of 60 seconds long. You do the math.

Perhaps the best way to summarise my thoughts on the matter is with this well-known phrase:

"When the going gets tough, the tough get going."