Spo-reflections on failure

Duolingo is where I learn my language lessons. I don’t play video games but I am told the app resembles the game “Candy crush” in which people are placed in leagues and advance depending on how much you play. This stratagem appeals to our human nature for status. We want to be ‘on top’ as it were and I sense many at Duolingo are more interested in advancing (and staying) on top especially in the diamond league, the top rank. I give Duolingo credit for doing this; it keeps people online. Many times I’ve noticed I am doing lessons not to learn but to advance or stay in a league. I have to remind myself I am here to learn Spanish and French and review my German – not to play games. All said I am a regular participant and I have more or less stayed in the diamond league for some time.* Last night I finished #7 in the diamond league. This promoted me into some sort of tournament. It says if I stay on top in the tournament for three weeks I get some sort of prize, which looks to be a trophy sticker added to my avatar. Since I am now swimming with the sharks, I surmise I will have to do lessons almost every time I get a break lest I am ejected from the tournament and demoted to the lower league. It reminds me of how C.S. Lewis said the whole philosophy of hell rests on the axiom my good is mine and yours is yours; to be means to be in competition.

This is madness and I am not going to try. I am going to keep up my approach of doing lessons when I have the time/desire to learn. If I drop down I don’t give a tosh. I am OK with failure.

Americans are horrified by failure. We are told to always keep going and never give up and to do so is the worst thing imaginable. Failure means you are a weak character and of no value, in short you are a LOSER. I’ve been called a loser all my life, starting in grade school when I could not kick a ball or do a chin up to save my life. I stopped trying knowing at some level I didn’t want to or couldn’t or the effort would not be worth the pay off. In hindsight if I had kept trying I would be admired for doing so even if I didn’t do it.

I quit playing the piano after a lifetime of lessons as it grew to be no fun and it took hours to practice and what did I get for it all? I could play a decent Bach invention. There is value to this but apparently not enough to keep it going. “You quit?!” people say when I tell them.

This is called ‘The Sunk Cost Fallacy’ in economics and it applies to psychology. The dark side of ‘not quitting’ I see all the time in my practice: viz. people who won’t give up a job, a relationship, or a position as to do so people will see them as losers or quitters. Yet they are miserable and they know they are trying to fill a black hole.

I think people are beginning to connect the dots about quitting not as pathetic but perhaps life-saving. We need to applaud, not shame, others when they announce they failed at something so stopped.

This week I will do my lessons and focus on learning language. If I am ejected from the tournament league I will feel a little sting from a lifetime of being an American – but not much. I will be a Loser but only in their paradigm. In mine I am a Winner.

It is OK to fail folks.

Tell me something you failed at.

*Them who do not keep up enough XPs are demoted to the obsidian league. Oh the embarrassment. On the other hand I sense thems in the lower league are there to learn language not rack up XPs.