Wat is success?
Success is not failure. Success is individualistic, the ‘great me’. It is insensitive and invulnerable. Whoever is successful does something improbable and transcends all expectations. Success is the norm and the how becomes unimportant.
Or at least, that is what we believe today in our Western world. And that is precisely the problem of our time. Failure is impossible in human existence; we must not allow ourselves to be paralysed by the possibility of failure. Dirk De Wachter does not define success as materialistic progress at the expense of the happiness of others; success has to do with taking responsibility and commitment, each with his or her shortcomings and talents. True success is in the small differences, in being meaningful and significant in this world. We gladly follow his approach.
How to fail successfully?
A number of factors are important to allow us to fail from time to time:
- Engaging in meaningful connection with others, loving and being significant. And we mean in a relationship of trust, not with the rest of the world through media channels.
- Counteracting superficiality. The human being is not a black box, it is a story that is told and being told. The human being seeks a meaningful existence and this is much more important than individualistic success.
- Attachment is necessary in order to be able to connect with others later in life. This connection is essential in order to fail.
- Language is comforting; to fail we need to be able to tell. In today’s media culture, we do this too little; we are in danger of creating distance instead of drawing closer. Failure cannot be explained with a smiley face.
- Silence seems to be a difficult product in our world of over-stimulation. However, the most essential thing in life is to wait; to think thoughtfully and quietly. Silence is necessary to be able to listen well.
Anti-success
According to Dirk De Wachter, the opposite of success is self-indulgence. Non-engagement, nothingness, not being in the world and doing it all in a self-complacent way. High sensitivity is not a problem, insensitivity is. So, failure is not the opposite of success, it is part of it!
Contradiction with digitalisation and technology?
As long as we don’t see progress as individualistic success, failure does not need to be in opposition to progress. As WayFinders, we go in search of the meaningfulness of people. We use digitalisation and technology as a lever, not as an end on its own. Searching for meaningfulness, interacting and leveraging technology will become increasingly important in the future.
We would like to help you lead a life with more peace and focus, in order to guarantee more success and happiness. Read more about our Masterclass Hocus Focus.