The one thing I feel I failed at this semester is the fact that I never went to any of Dr. Pryor's lectures. I live in Gainesville, and it is very easy for me to get to UF anytime or any day. In the first couple of weeks of the class, I sent him an email telling him I would definitely show up one day to check it out since he usually doesn't have many people there on Monday or Wednesday when he gives the lectures. Well now it's almost the end of the semester, and I still haven't made it to one lecture. Every time I thought about going and planned to go; I ended up doing something else. The other things I ended up doing were really not important at all. A few times my friend called me just before I was going to leave my house and go and asked me to play golf. Well, I never turn down a chance to play golf and did that instead of taking in a lecture.
What I learned from this is that if I tell someone I'll show up I should follow through with what I said. I know Dr. Pryor doesn't hold this against me because this is an online class and you aren't required to attend any lectures. If I tell someone I'll be there in another scenario and don't show up there may be ramifications for not following through with what I said. So I basically learned not to say I'll do something and then find an excuse not to do it.
Failure is both embarrassing and hard. Failure can easily be turned around by someone thinking they had a reason for the failure which only justifies their excuse in their own mind. I handle failure emotionally by feeling bad about what happened after the fact. I don't get upset or behave differently because if you failed that situation is over and you can't change the outcome. There's really no reason to cry over something that's over with. I don't really think this class has changed my perspective on failure because I don't believe failure can be prevented 100% of the time in every situation during your entire life. I just don't think that's possible and have never met anyone yet that didn't experience failure once in their life. I think life is full of risks and you'll never avoid living life without taking risks. It's all about which risks your willing to take because some are better than others, so that's a personal choice you have to make on your own.
Victor, learn from this failure to not practice a bad habit. Personally, I really dislike when a person says they'll do something and never goes through with it. I'm glad you were able to feel "guilt" because that means you still care while some people don't feel that anymore because they've been doing it for such a long time. It's good to hear that you won't do it again because it's similar to making a promise and not following through.
ReplyDeleteMichelle Lam
Hi Victor,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this experience of failure! While you certainly failed at keeping your word, you didn't have to deal with any "ramifications" of this failure, unless of course you also never watched lectures. If you failed to do that, then this class may have not full served to educate you the way it was intended to. But I know that's not the case. I agree that failure in life is inevitable and it is important to take calculated risks. If you fail then, you are just closer to success!