Why good enough is better than great

Don’t try to give your children the best of everything, lest you give them a false dream of what their world will be like. Representation pic

What caught my attention was the title of the virtual course - How to Fail. Why would anyone even consider joining it? Hadn't we just passed through two exhausting pandemic years when most things we take for granted had failed spectacularly - birthday parties, going to work, a trip to the market, medical help in emergencies, eating out, even family get-togethers?

In 2.5 hours, How to Fail promises to help you understand the sickness of ‘perfectionism'; why we fear disappointing our parents; why we dread failing; what it means to fail ‘well' and accept our limitations without bitterness; and the media's influence on our understanding of failure and success.

"What do you think of the pursuit of excellence?" I asked one of my friends who has been pursuing it since we finished school.

"One day I'll catch it," he said. "I just bought Ethereum so I'll be rich quite soon. Then I'll come up with the next big thing and then - "

Consider for a moment a completely heretic notion - the pursuit of excellence has actually been responsible for most human misery. As evidence I present the following facts, published only 10 days ago by the Paris-based World Inequality Lab:

Just over 1 per cent of the world's adults - or about 56.1 million individuals - are millionaires.

2,755 of them are billionaires, obnoxious dudes like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Bill Gates.

Between them, the richest 10 per cent of the world owns 76 per cent of the world's wealth. The bottom 50 per cent - the "poorest of the poor" - own 2 per cent.

During the first two years of the pandemic, these fabulously successful masters of the universe became, if you can believe it, even richer.

Here's my clinching argument - despite these damning facts, everyone wants to be like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. And to be like them you have to excel and be smarter than everyone else.

During the same pandemic where the rich grew richer, 100 million ordinary people with ordinary lives sank into utter poverty.

The question on your lips at this moment should be: "Really? This is the best we can do as a species?"

The pressure starts from school. Being first in class, acing the IIT exams, being a winner in sports, being multifaceted, super-talented and most likely to succeed - these are the values that parents with nothing but the best intentions instil into their children. The pressure doesn't let up through college; it only gets worse once you get a job.

As children, we learn that failure is embarrassing and punishable. Success is to be worshipped, striven for and rewarded.

You are taught the rules early - Decent people don't get to the top. You have to be ruthless. You will have to leave some people behind and step over the corpses of others. Look good, get recognised - that's the mantra which grows into an Instagram-like obsession. Only one person wins, everyone else loses. It's a zero sum game.

But here's a splash of cold water. You are not destined to be wealthy, powerful, famous and excellent. These qualities will elude the vast majority of us. Most of us are going to fail in quite a lot of things and discover that we are, alas, merely mediocre. We will feel inferior and worthless and try even harder, straining ourselves and our families in the process. As Samuel Beckett put it, you'll be running on a treadmill called I can't go on, I must go on.

Avram Alpert, writer and educator, proposes two ways to improve the way you think of yourself - succeed much more (impossible) or lower your expectations of yourself. The pursuit of excellence doesn't lead to an excellent life. What we all need is a good enough life, with decency, civility, friendship, security, dignity and the basics.

Nature doesn't reward excellence. It prizes diversity and survival. Most of nature is average and mediocre, a few things are extraordinary. A gazelle doesn't dream of being an elephant.

"Wrong," my friend says. "Nature rewards strength, aggression and ruthlessness. Look at lions and tigers."

"Why then," I ask, "are there so few tigers left?"

"Humans killed them," he said. "We're the top of the heap."

No, we're not. We should know this by now. A small virus has taught us who's really boss.

So don't try to give your children the best of everything, lest you give them a false dream of what their world will be like. Such a child will be unprepared for a world of complexity and distortions, betrayals and catastrophes, and never learn that to be human means being comfortable with failure.

Be a good enough parent and give those children a good enough life.

The next virtual master class of How to Fail is on February 23 from 2.30 pm GMT. Here's a link - https://cutt.ly/BOkMJ7X. For the paltry equivalent of £40, you could learn how to be an outstanding failure, shed your obsession with excellence and perfection - and finally start enjoying life again.

Here, viewed from there. C Y Gopinath, in Bangkok, throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai, the city that raised him. You can reach him at cygopi@gmail.com
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.