I have a disagreement with the virtue of counting one's blessings. This advice is often given to people who have suffered loss, whether a family tragedy or a failed project. They're told to think of all the good things that they still have, and to minimize the importance of failure.
This is a nothing but a diversionary coping mechanism. For people to have a meaningful life, they have to define some kind of meaning; they have to be lucid, and attached to reality. In other words, they have to
care about certain things, so they can invest effort, and reap happiness. They have to master themselves, and cultivate their desires and appreciation of good fortune. It's hard to be a self-mastered person or go far while living in a shade of poorly-understood, weakly-anchored gray. The majority of the great achievers of this world wanted dearly what they've achieved, even to the point that their passion burned inside them, refusing to let them dawdle. Likewise, the majority of tragedies are about people with meaningful attachments to reality who suffered abject loss. If someone who has suffered incredibly for some high ambition just shrugged it off, can it be said that they ever really cared about it in the first place?
And so, "count your blessings" is indicative of shallowness. It's pretending not to have cared about something desired or appreciated so that the loss of it hurts less. "Oh, it really wasn't that important, and besides, we've got so much else to be thankful for!" For many, it's distracting oneself with other pleasures and projects, or moving the goalposts shorter than one's original ambition to compensate for failure. It's a weakness. It's also a problem of religious thinking. If one is guaranteed entrance to heaven, what does this life become but a waiting room-dalliance—a sampling of earth life without concrete consequences; a rationalizing of chance and fortune to the will of God? Yes, there are those who believe good works are needed to get into heaven, but their own passions and efforts are hampered by this stop-short attitude of "well, we tried; God can take care of the rest," or attributing the outcome of enterprise to divine will.
For those with implacable lucidity and a rationalistic anchor to this life, there can be none of that. This life and universe are all we have, and we lack a time machine. We can only say, "We gave it a good effort—but we failed." There's no, "...still, look at all of this and that we have!" And there's no appeal to religious fate, underscored by the knowledge that one will still go to heaven or enjoy an afterlife. There is nothing but that internalization of failure: acknowledgment of the inalterable past, in which one suffered true loss. It can't be changed, rationalized away, or averted. If counting one's blessings is sentience yielding ground to the uncaring universe by castrating some of its ambitions for the sake of emotional comfort, then recognizing and owning one's loss is standing fast against the abyss; of staring into loss and saying, "I am still standing, and I am still
growing."
This is a true seed of strengh. Unforgettable memories (excusing psychologically severe ones that inhibit function, like PTSD) make a person grow stronger. Failure forces a person to overcome it, if they still have the alacrity to pursue their desires. Failure necessitates self-evaluation, mastery, and learning; it humbles a person in a way that allows them to view their flaws, and then set about conquering them. Failure is a teacher, and a reminder to try even harder. Failure, not success, propels us towards our limits; challenges us to keep moving when we feel defeated; shows us our existing comforts—our "blessings"—and nudges us to fall back into safe harbor; taunts us with the fleeting image of success, just beyond its guard! Failure is what must be
trod underfoot on the path to victory!Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.
The main reason people fail is not because of lack of ability or opportunities. They fail because they lack the inner strength to persist in the face of obstacles and difficulties. That's why trying something almost always leads to failure. By definition, trying something means you will quit if you are not successful.
Most of us go through life as failures, because we are waiting for the "time to be right" to start doing something worthwhile. Do not wait. The time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.
Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.
The prizes of life are at the end of each journey, not near the beginning; and it is not given to me to know how many steps are necessary in order to reach my goal. Failure I may still encounter at the thousandth step, yet success hides behind the next bend in the road. Never will I know how close it lies unless I turn the corner.
To achieve your dreams, you must embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you're not failing, you're probably not really moving forward.
When achievers fail, they see it as a momentary event, not a lifelong epidemic. It's not personal. If you want to succeed, don't let any single incident color your view of yourself.
If you are succeeding in everything you do, then you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough.
Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don't fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.
Climbing a mountain, one should not give up when difficulties accumulate. Accumulating merit, one should not complain about fate.
The path to my fixed purpose is hid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' bed, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!
In almost all its modern usage, "count your blessings" stands ready to pulverize the seed of strength that comes from failure's teachings. It seeks to divert your attention to other comforts, and to minimize how much you truly cared about what you just lost—and by extension, the power and awareness of your self-will and connection to life. It may have its uses in combating some forms of depression, or an irrational excess of emotion over tragic loss—but counting one's blessings doesn't have a place in the spirited heart of lucid ambition. The one who really seeks, when told to count their blessings after a failure, will say, "I still failed. But I'm going to keep moving." They will get stronger, and next time, they'll win, and achieve their dreams.
Never give up. Never let your passions be diluted by too much comfort and vague, fallacious notions of security. As Douglas McArthur said, "There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity." And as for counting one's blessings—the greatest blessing you can give yourself is that of finishing what you set out to do in the first place; of growing and mastering yourself in the process.
So kick reason to the curb and DO THE IMPOSSIBLE!!
"The whole of the universe is but the birthright of sentience," just as Radical_Dreamer coined, you know?
