Fear of Failure vs Freedom
The Black Commenter says,
The thing about freedom is that it is inherently insecure. There were slaves who did not want to leave the plantations after abolition because they were so afraid of not being able to make it. Freedom is terrifying because… you can fail, because things may not work out, because there are no guarantees.
Slavery is very secure. Everyone is cared for, all the needs are provided, there is equality (roughly) and no one has to fear; that is they don’t have to fear anyone but the slave master.
It is interesting that the same leftists who hated the security of social systems and protested against them (giving us no-fault divorce, abortion on demand, “free love”, sexual liberation, etc.) because of their restrictions on “freedom” now want the restrictions of state imposed slavery and trade off their freedom for it.
Freedom is something I am passionate about as should be pretty apparent from the title of the site! So, I can’t help but to expand on this comment.
I ask my children when they fall down or mess up, “What do you do when you fall down?” There answer is and should always be “I get back up.” I train them to think in that manner. My two year old knows it by heart. She falls down and before I even ask her she says, “I get back up.” And she hopes up seldom with even a tear.
This should be ingrained in the mind of every human being. As long as you get back up failure doesn’t exist. Only when an individual decides in their mind they can’t get back up do they become a failure. Failure is a lie. It is a state of mind not of reality. It is self-imposed. We are all invincible to the extent in which we truly believe ourselves to be. Even unto death failure is a lie. Shot me in the head until I am dead and I do not believe that I would have failed at anything because only then the best is yet to come. People that fear failure need God. As Jesus said,
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Fear of failure is a lie of the devil meant to restrict and mislead man. Freedom! Now that is something given by a higher power. The freedom of life and liberty endowed by our Creator. Alas though, man is fallen. We bury our “talents” in the ground. Man must give away his freedom for slavery. It is in his nature and true freedom as always is purchased with blood. And it must be so until the end of history, as Tolstoy wrote in War and Peace even, “A king is slave to history.”
We will give it away because of our fallen nature. Because we ignore the man from the underground. Because we buy into the lie. Because of cowardice and vice. Because of a thousand other reasons.
However, man may sell us all into slavery but let me tell you something that I believe. I will not fail! My family and I will remain free even unto death because I do not believe in failure and I love freedom even though blood may be spilled out on the ground. Freedom is a worthy goal and failure is a lie!
There is an old traditional “Negro” spiritual that says, “O’ freedom, O’ freedom, O’ freedom over me… and before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free”
That song is one of the deep anthems of my heart, taught to me by my mother and profound in its lessons. For those of us who have already died with HIM, there is freedom in life and no fear in death, so there is nothing really that man can do to me. That is the freedom HE gives. But there is a common free, HE gives to everyman, that freedom to which the Declaration of Independence refers – rights of life, liberty and the pursuit (though not the guarantee) of happiness. That’s some good stuff right there, and I hope, nay, I pray that we will not lose it, and that your children will grow up in a land where freedom and liberty are not mere words and the declaration not a mere dead letter.
I hope so! Even if this country throws away what it has freedom in Him and the freedom given by Him cannot be taken away if we hold onto it in our hearts and our actions. It might not be easy and we may suffer but freedom is freedom. It can’t be taken by those that hold it dear in their hearts. I think it was the movie Braveheart in which Mel Gibsons chacter William Wallace famously said, “They can take our lives but they can’t take our freedom.”
As for that spiritual, that is AWESOME. I’d love to hear it sung. Gives me goosebumps just reading the lyrics.
I looked up rest of them to post here for reference because that’s just good stuff…
Perhaps another way to regard “failure” is not as an absolute, but as an instance in which desired results were no achieved and thereby can be utilized as a learning experience or “stepping stone” to improve the results of the next attempt.
I would agree that giving up is not a desired solution although sometimes a redefining of goals can be a temporarily acceptable choice. A colleague recently suggested to me that rather than looking at life as a circle (constantly returning to the same points) to instead view a lifeline from the perspective of a corkscrew on its side, recognizing a similar fact pattern from the past, but with the added benefit of experience being able to regard it from a different viewpoint and continue to progress on your individual journey.
Good thoughts! I agree redefining of goals can be a acceptable choice. If for example your goal was X but then you change it to Y and achieve Y then X was always Y you just when you initially began to pursue it you didn’t realize X was actually Y. That is not failure but success. Also, sometimes the original goal of X losses it’s meaning when it becomes Y and there is no need to achieve it. This isn’t failure either. Sometimes things lose their meaning or value. Like just because I didn’t become a lawyer (even though at 16 that’s what I thought I wanted to be) doesn’t mean I’m a failure my priorities changed.
Exactly! Failure is a self-imposed limitation.