Tips on How to Deal with a Society That Hates Failure
(Muh. Syahrul Padli — Reflection Series)
In a communal society, especially in areas with a high level of mutual assistance, people usually do not appreciate failure and praise success.
They are not used to thinking that failure is part of a learning process, part of life.
They greatly glorify success and achievement. If a neighbor’s child becomes a soldier, police officer, or civil servant, then their parents seem to have risen in social status.
The villagers ask a lot of questions, such as how to educate children, what to do when feeding children, and how to create a child in honeymoon so that the child who comes into the world is not a social outcast. This is the portrait of the villagers in my village — I hope it does not happen in your village.
However, in reality, success or achievement in a particular field is not for everyone. In fact, it is more common for failure in one field and success in another. Isn’t that true?
A person who successfully passed the civil service examination may not be successful in managing agricultural land. A successful police officer or soldier may not be good when doing business. Besides, we don’t know what kind of process someone has gone through: their ups and downs, their suffering.
Do we have the resources (the privilege of a well-off family and the right mindset) and are we ready to bear all the wounds of the struggle of someone like Nadiem Makarim before founding Gojek (Unicorn level og Start-up in Indonesia)?
In my experience, we consider something ideal because we are not the ones who are experiencing it. If we are experiencing it, then we consider it normal.
This is similar to the case of people lived in city who think that living in the village is ideal. When they have lived in the village for a long time, they will know the true reality inside: the facilities are lacking, there is no privacy, they have to keep pretending to be okay, they have to endure being judged by the villagers, the factions in society which are going to bad case only with small trigger, etc.
Nature is very fond of selection. In a certain cycle, there are individuals or organisms that are selected because they are not suitable for the environment or the rules in that environment.
Extinction at the level of living things is a clear evidence of how nature regulates everything. In the socio-economic environment, this may be debatable because the mechanisms and what applies are not entirely the same as in the wild. Nevertheless, there must also be a separate selection with an output or goal that is always the same: the existence of a hierarchy.
The high value placed on success and achievement may indicate what is ideal in the minds of society, describe the fiction held by society, and what they want to achieve at least in their minds.
This is an organic process (running on its own). It could also be the result of certain interventions from the circumstances of the time or the large current of public understanding at a certain point in time.
Unfortunately, village communities are not used to clashes of ideas. They have run out of energy in their daily activities. So it is a logical consequence that the space for thought or discussion is very limited. Except for a few special cases, such as in gossip places (for men and women) and also in chess places etc. Although rare, I have found middle-aged people and elderly people who occasionally discuss life, Sufism, local politics, and other deep matters.
Even in the past, there was a pentol seller (meatball seller) who once told me about his journey to find the meaning of happiness that was far from the society’s standard.
He had his own principles and values. I was both amazed and puzzled. He was like a man who doesn’t care of opinions of others and society. This is just an anomaly. Only one or two people have the ability to reflect (review, then interpret it from their own perspective, and then internalize it as a value). More people accept a consensus or majority opinion.
If you draw a red line, welfare affects the level of education and the level of average critical thinking. There are also other possible pathways of influence. But the bottom line is that welfare has a significant impact.
People in the city are relatively more indifferent and selfish because they usually have financial stability. They are self-sufficient to meet their own needs, they don’t need to rely on their neighbors.
Their time has already been spent working. Interacting with neighbors is usually not a top priority because they leave early in the morning and return before sunset. Tired of the journey, tired of the office, and tired of their own family matters.
City people are used to using their life energy efficiently. Your neighbor in an apartment complex in the city fails the CPNS selection (Civil Servant Test), just listen to it casually. A neighbor who is cheating with her acquaintance in the migrant workers area is also heard casually. As long as an activity or an event has no direct relevance to themselves, then city residents will choose to focus on their things.
By considering the differences and characteristics between each environment, we can gauge the possible environment that is suitable for ourselves.
If you are an introverted-failed CPNS (civil servant), being in a village environment might destroy you from within. You will be judged for being less sociable, when you try to socialize you are still judged for your stiffness; and when you succeed in communicating according to the customs of society, you are still judged for not being as successful as the child of X, not as successful as the child of Y and so on.
But in the end, every place or environment has its own suffering. Life in the village may not be perfect and vice versa, life in the city is also not perfect. Stop expecting an ideal environment!
Instead of hoping that a society will change, it is better to move to an environment that we can handle its suffering. Or if we do not have the opportunity to move from an environment that does not appreciate defeat, failure, and mistakes, then our perspective must be changed.
We are not the center of the world. Our existence or non-existence will not change society. Our choice to live or choose to breathe will not stop the cycle of judgment. It is better for us to focus on the benefits of our presence and the longing of others for our absence — if possible.
I can say that social status such as civil servants, police, and soldiers are no more noble or more ideal than a convenience store owner who provides prepaid phone credits, electricity payments, and photocopying services for the community that really needs them.
Why?
Because the judgment of society will ultimately not stop through new evolutionary stages. You are a civil servant but cannot be loaned money will also be judged. You are a Police but still in a low rank, do not have a car, do not have a cool house, will also be judged and compared to other police. But if you are beneficial, then you do not need human judgment anymore. After all, God has already given you the mark that you are the best human because the best human is the one who is beneficial to others, regardless of their profession. That is a value that has been proven to be able to pass the test of time. You and I can hold on to that value while adapting it to the current situation.
It’s okay if we fail today and fail again tomorrow and so on. It’s okay if we are trapped in a society that hates failure. Keep living and trying to be beneficial to yourself and others.
If being beneficial to society is still too heavy, just keep your eating habits, keep your physical and mental health, and get enough sleep. Activities that are beneficial like that have already proven that you appreciate life. And that is a sign that you have at least succeeded in keeping the trust of God who chose you among so many other human seeds to come to this world.
