If failure is freedom, then freedom is failure

You've heard me argue that failure means freedom.

It works the other way too. Freedom means failure. More exactly, getting things done requires focus; focus requires constraint -- looking here and not over there. Freedom means a lack of constraint, … which easily devolves into a lack of focus, … which means getting nothing done. Which means failure.

This was the pattern of my father's life, once he got out of the family business. He had lots of great ideas of stuff he was going to do, and he accomplished almost none of them … because he didn't have to, because nobody was making him do it. So it was easy for him to plan to do it tomorrow.

And largely it's how my life is going these days.

I've been thinking about this since last week, when I went to a meeting of the local chapter of my professional association (which I only joined last year, after two decades in the profession). One of the other members was giving a talk about an aspect of the field about which I know nothing. And one of his first slides introduced himself: his academic background, his jobs in the field, and all his professional accreditations. He's got a slew of them from this association itself; he's also got a lot of continuing education, including degrees earned while he was working. All in all it was an impressive list. And of course I've got nothing like it. I've taken a lot of internal training classes here at work, but I've done nothing on my own time.

Why not? It never occurred to me. Maybe because I never took my profession seriously enough. Years ago I would have said that I was too busy keeping the family together, parenting two school-aged kids, and acting as a buffer between Wife's craziness and the world; but obviously none of that is true any more. But no, I'm 57 going on 58 this year and I have none of that admirable stack of professional development to brag of.

Maybe I've accomplished other things? Well … there's this blog, though it's not under my real name and for exactly that reason I can't show it off in real life. I've had ideas for a number of things that I'd like to read if somebody else wanted to write them, but I've never gotten the actual writing done on my own. Last year I was actually discussing one of them with Marie for a couple of months, and got quite a few notes written … before I just stopped. God knows why. Maybe it was because I was going to write a book about an innovation I developed at work a couple years ago. Never did that either.

Then there was the time back in September when I asked Marie to keep me accountable for a project to clean up the stacks of paper I've accumulated over years. That one lasted some months, at least until Son 1 moved in with me after Christmas. But it has been hard to keep at it since then. Also I needed to buy a car. Haven't done that either. Son 1 has a car now, but that's because Wife called him one day and made it happen the next. See, when other people make you do things you really can get them done.

Maybe that's why we praise the Great Achievers of the world so highly -- because it's so bloody rare to make yourself do anything at all. Or maybe it's just me who is that sluggish.

Anyway, if A=B then B=A. If failure is freedom, then freedom is failure. Nice to know, huh?