Is it possible to fail at life?

Want to see life failures ? Go to any street people tent yard. The ones who have been "homeless for a decade " are the poster kids for "life failures ". In my 50 plus years of working for a living ( with a grade 9 education ) I have never been "out of work " for more than 3 weeks at any time.

My Wife and I own a nice home, that is worth over a million Canadian dollars, with no mortgage. We have no debts other than our annual city property taxes, and the monthly costs of food and utilities. In that 50 years I owned and operated a number of small business operations, and I employed over 40 people at one time or another. I planned for my retirement, starting in my 20's, with investments that I paid into monthly. The miracle of compounding interest was drummed into my head by my Dad who showed me how it worked. When banks were offering 12 percent interest rates on GIC's I invested as much as I could afford. JimB.
 

jimintoronto said:
Want to see life failures ? Go to any street people tent yard. The ones who have been "homeless for a decade " are the poster kids for "life failures ". In my 50 plus years of working for a living ( with a grade 9 education ) I have never been "out of work " for more than 3 weeks at any time.

My Wife and I own a nice home, that is worth over a million Canadian dollars, with no mortgage. We have no debts other than our annual city property taxes, and the monthly costs of food and utilities. In that 50 years I owned and operated a number of small business operations, and I employed over 40 people at one time or another. I planned for my retirement, starting in my 20's, with investments that I paid into monthly. The miracle of compounding interest was drummed into my head by my Dad who showed me how it worked. When banks were offering 12 percent interest rates on GIC's I invested as much as I could afford. JimB.
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Failure is subjective to interpretation. You are assuming the lack of residency as an indication of failure which is not entirely correct. Just saying the perception by which we see the world is tainted by our prejudice, likes and dislikes.
 
Mr. Ed said:
Failure is subjective to interpretation. You are assuming the lack of residency as an indication of failure which is not entirely correct. Just saying the perception by which we see the world is tainted by our prejudice, likes and dislikes.
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I am a strong advocate for the idea of "not rewarding failures ". When the bums are wearing designer clothes donated from the closets of the rich, and complaining that the tents they are given are not new, I draw the line. Being "unhoused " is the PC way to say..This person is unwilling to actually TAKE RESPONSIBILTY for themselves. JImB.
 

Since this thread has about run its course will add a bit.

Very few people go through life with defined life long goals for which they are regularly grading themselves as relative success or failure at, although a few do. For instance, the NFL player with a goal of being in the Super Bowl or $$$ materialist that wants to be rich and buy some massive residence looking down on his city. In both those cases their goal might not be considered by others to broadly be examples of human success though may at least be to those individuals in a narrow sense.

Most of us instead have a long list of challenges throughout our lives for which we work towards goals of. As a K12 school kid it is passing classes and grades. For a blue collar working adult, it may be fitting in with other employees, being appreciated, and performing their job well. That same person would have many other goals like becoming more skilled at golf or being competent in the kitchen cooking a turkey.

So yes, life for we modern people can have a long list of goals, small to large, trivial to important, of brief importance to of life long value, and more. But again after all those efforts and goals are assessed say as we become seniors, few are or have been keeping score of being overall successful or failing at life.

Many people have failed at so much in life or even made a single huge mistake upon that overall they themselves realize in their own mind they have not only done poorly compared to others but also performed poorly as they themselves expected given what they are capable of. We all have failures in life but a wise person learns, improves, and moves on while understanding their innate limitations since we are all created somewhat differently, relatively unequal, lucky and not by mere chance.

Probably the most common men's life goal is marrying, having a happy, content, satisfied family, guiding and supporting their family until they are adults, then happily retiring with one's mate in comfort. That is not a kind of goal people write down as a list and keep score on but generally is part of our society and culture people understand and can discuss with reflection if asked.
 
Can you fail at life?
Life is not a contest. Yeah, we compete with each other, but there's no score keeper for "life". You don't get points for anything- there's no scorecard.
 

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