Pancakes and Small Failures

I used to be afraid of failing, even of failing a small task.  I would get myself so worked up about what I would do if I didn't accomplish exactly what I set out to, if things didn't turn out how I wanted them to.  But in most cases, I would end up worrying so much about failure, that I would quit before I was able to fail.  Perhaps in the back of my mind, I knew that if I were to just never follow through, I wouldn't have to feel the pain that I was so afraid of.  The ironic thing about that is that at the same time I was so afraid of any kind of pain, I was talking to people about how I was a buddhist, and relaying the Zen messages I was reading at the time.  Buddhism is a set of teachings that advocates the acceptance of pain and struggle as necessary parts of life, but seeks to minimize how devastating that suffering is by highlighting ways that people can make peace with it.  So here I was, preaching about a philosophy of acceptance and making peace, while I would neither accept or make peace with my own life.

These days, I have had to deal with failure as a background of my life.  This is not a negative thing, not at all.  I found out that while I was busy ditching all the life projects that I undertook, the world remembered that I started and left them, and brought them back for me to face them.  I was academically dismissed from graduate school in May of 2008, after a long trip down substance abuse lane, into manic depression-ville.  I could have, should have tried to alert someone who could help in the academic realm, but I chose to just stop caring and leave.  Now, I have to take 3 or more graduate classes, when I need only one class to get my M.A., and I need to ace all three of those classes in order to get above academic probation level.  Will it be hard?  No doubt.  Will I want to give up?  If I know myself and how I think whilst under pressure, absolutely.  But the difference between 18 months ago and now is that I am no longer so focused on failure that I refuse to put my full effort into it.  Sure, I am afraid of failure, I would be insane not to be.  However, I can be afraid of failing but use that fear to motivate me to lay down a plan and follow it, thus hopefully avoiding failure.  But if I do put myself all in, and still don't come away on top, I can deal with that, because I have already.  

This morning, I tried to make pancakes.  Now the last time I made pancakes, they were not bad, but i added too much salt, and Erin said they were kind of gross.  The recipe I had was for one person, so I needed to multiply the ingredients to make enough for Erin and I.  I figured that it would be a simple enough task, so I just started multiplying and mixing.  I didn't exactly follow the recipe, and....it showed.  The pancakes were horrible.  I couldn't tell you specifically what was wrong with them, but both Erin's face as she attempted to eat them, and the odd looking flapjack now oozing around the pan told enough of the story to close the case.  Pancakes are supposed to flap, and these flopped.  I was angry at first, knowing that only a foolish woman would let a man attempt to make hotcakes for a third time after almost killing her with the first two attempts.  But I remembered, as I took out the trash bag full of past meals and this morning's monstrosity, an old saying I once heard that was attributed to the Dalai Lama: "when you lose, don't lose the lesson".  I may have failed, but there was a lesson there, were I willing to learn it: at least when it comes to the pancakes, stick to the recipe.

There is a broader lesson, though, and it applies to the main goal toward which I am working here.  Like with the pancakes, I am treading unfamiliar ground in training for a marathon.  There is a plan laid out for me, and all I have to do is put away my expectations and worries, and follow it.  When I think about it this way, all I have to do is run, the rest is already taken care of.  That's so comfortingly simple.  But really, that's all you ever have to do.  Make a plan, do what the plan says, when it says you should, and don't worry about the rest.  I guess if anything, today reminded me of what can happen when you don't follow the plan; flopjacks, or as they're more colloquially known "notcakes".