Basically, I'm wondering what people's ideas are on failure thresholds. How many times, in essence, does an attempt need to fail for something to be decided to be a lost cause
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I don't believe in giving up - because that implies a lack of hope. The absence of hope is where one finds despair. It's a big sin in the eyes of the Catholic church, and one of the only things I agree with them about.
However, if you are expecting others to change as a result of your efforts, then it comes into a matter of managing what you expect to achieve from your efforts, rather than giving up. If your desired result is that someone see the error of their ways and change their whole life around, sure you might never get it. But is the point more in the achieving of the goal, or in the making of the effort? For me, now, it's the latter. I was one of those adult children that wrote off a parent - and it's something I regret every single day, without fail. (Understanding it was a hypothetical, just sayin' ;)
I could go on and on for hours about this, because once you're talking about changing others or managing their behavior it really comes down to where and how you're directing your efforts.. and whether you're expecting the same effort to achieve different results than have been won in the past.
So while I'm saying "don't ever give up".. there's also an element of fluidity that needs to remain in terms of your goal, your expectations, and taking that energy to manage your own inner being rather than trying to change others. Which, in the end, might achieve the original end goal. Because when talking about interpersonal relations, is the end goal really getting that person to love/accept/appreciate us? Or is it to *feel* loved/accepted/appreciated? Again, perhaps changing the way one goes after that end goal is really the way to success.
"The things we are clear about wanting in our life show up, but only to the extent that we are clear." -Janet Attwood
However, if you are expecting others to change as a result of your efforts, then it comes into a matter of managing what you expect to achieve from your efforts, rather than giving up. If your desired result is that someone see the error of their ways and change their whole life around, sure you might never get it. But is the point more in the achieving of the goal, or in the making of the effort? For me, now, it's the latter. I was one of those adult children that wrote off a parent - and it's something I regret every single day, without fail. (Understanding it was a hypothetical, just sayin' ;)
I could go on and on for hours about this, because once you're talking about changing others or managing their behavior it really comes down to where and how you're directing your efforts.. and whether you're expecting the same effort to achieve different results than have been won in the past.
So while I'm saying "don't ever give up".. there's also an element of fluidity that needs to remain in terms of your goal, your expectations, and taking that energy to manage your own inner being rather than trying to change others. Which, in the end, might achieve the original end goal. Because when talking about interpersonal relations, is the end goal really getting that person to love/accept/appreciate us? Or is it to *feel* loved/accepted/appreciated? Again, perhaps changing the way one goes after that end goal is really the way to success.
"The things we are clear about wanting in our life show up, but only to the extent that we are clear." -Janet Attwood
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