To Try Is to Succeed in Life

Life is trying and it is about trying.

For most of us, it’s not easy. Even many of the most outwardly successful people will tell you that they are always looking over their shoulder, wondering when fate, or some other force, will steal from them what they think is theirs. Or take from them what other people think makes them successful.

We have all been living under the restraints of a pandemic for the last year and even though mass vaccinations could improve conditions in the coming months, it is fair to surmise life will not truly return to normal for at least another year. It may never be exactly as it was pre-pandemic. Nature, in this case, has stolen stability. The spread of the virus has demonstrated that none of us is fully in charge of our destiny no matter how hard we work to create our own future.

We are lucky to be alive at this point in history to experience this harsh lesson. Maybe it will make us stronger where we need to be stronger and more empathetic toward the struggles of others. We are being taught a life lesson on a global scale. I think the lesson is that life is about trying. That’s all we should expect from ourselves. To try is to succeed. To succeed at a level that matches our hopes and dreams is a bonus that can easily be taken away.

Chance is a bigger part of life than we realize, or it is a part of our lives we choose to ignore as the best means to press forward. As I look back over the past several decades of my own life, post college, I realize that almost every major chapter could be characterized as a failure, if I chose to view it that way. Instead, every time I have faced failure, or more accurately an unforeseen challenge, I have found a new path to follow. This is not to say I don’t look back, sometimes with regret. I do. But I also look forward, and I have found that every failure becomes a piece of the foundation for future success even if it is not the success I was seeking when the journey began.

It always seems as if I find new paths by accident. I am not a self-help prophet who believes you can overcome every challenge by thinking positive thoughts. In fact, I think that is mostly not true. I have another word in mind, but I prefer to keep this civil.

One character trait I have, that may help, is loyalty to a cause or purpose. I do not give up on people or things very easily. In some ways it is a character flaw more than it is a trait. As a result, I pursue my goals until I prove to myself, beyond all doubt(not just reasonable doubt) that a door or pathway has been closed to me fully. Only then do I look for that new path. Have you ever seen a bug trying to escape to the outdoors through a closed window. It never occurs to the bug that the window just to the right or left is open. It just keeps banging into the closed one, until it bounces - accidentally - through the open window. Yes, that’s been me at times.

I want to emphasize that this tendency, on my part, to choose a new path has never been a conscious decision for me. It only flows from a general understanding that as long as I am alive I should not give up. I have no choice but to keep trying. I therefore have no choice but to try something different. Like anyone who has reached a mid-point in their life, I have plenty of failures behind me and I have spent my share of hours, under the bedcovers, dreading what is next. When I look back at my failures however, I am surprised how they have always led to the next thing. The next chapter. The next mile on my personal Camino de Santiago.

This is not an advice column. It is an observation column. I don’t write this as a way to provide you with an answer about how to overcome your unique challenges, whatever they may be. I think everyone’s situation is specific to them. We all have different backgrounds and different burdens to carry. We don’t all have the same support systems to ease the strain of daily living. I am simply observing, and wondering how I have made it, or survived as long as I have and I am taking personal notice of what seems to have worked and not worked.

I don’t consider myself an overwhelming life success story based on the conventional measures that we tend to use to measure such things. It’s just that I am still standing and, in the end, I think that is success enough. No matter the challenge, the heartbreak, or the rough road, for some reason, I have always kept trying and the trying has taken me places I never expected to be.

As time passes, and I get further away from the goals I set for myself early in life, I have come to realize that such early goals are more about providing basic direction rather than specific destination. The chances of arriving at the exact end location we imagine for ourselves is small, because of the unplanned detours.

There is another reason this is not meant as an advice column. Many people, perhaps even most, have been dealt an unfair hand in life from the start. There are those born into impoverished circumstances, difficult family situations, sub-par educational opportunity, physical or mental health conditions that make it hard to compete in the world. There are those who meet difficult challenges along the way that most of us manage to avoid, or are blessed to avoid, like disease, addiction, or the constant threat of violence or actual violence. It would be unfair to compare my experience to anyone, who in addition to the regular ups and downs of life, faces any of these additional burdens, but even in the most trying of cases there is a basic human instinct to keep going. To survive the day and then the day after that.

When events that are out of our control, like the pandemic, begin to strip away the built in advantages some of us are born with, we see more clearly how easily the trappings of success can be lost. True success lies in not giving up. Every time we try to meet a personal goal, or use our life to make a difference for others, we succeed. We have a tendency to measure life success in terms of possessions, wealth, and position, but at its most basic, anyone who tries each day is a success. Trying is a sustainable goal.