Andrew Cuomo has had an amazing comeback. That 180, and the obvious lessons he learned along the way which he applied so brilliantly, has some folks looking at failure in a different - and more judgmental - way.
One angry man writes to the Ethical Guerrilla that the U.S. government should mandate that failures turn themselves around, just like Cuomo did. If they don't, then measures should be taken.
The Ethical Guerrilla, that is Mark Matousek, doesn't buy into the modest proposal of punishing personal and professional failure. Here you can read his iconic analysis of a society which engineers itself only for success. Such a society would, like the Inuit culture, put its non-winners on an ice floe, headed toward the ocean.
As we enter the nation's third downturn since the 21st century began, too many of us are feeling bad about ourselves. We shoulda been wiser. We shoulda saved more money. We shoulda majored in business, not English literature. This invidious pattern, notes Matousek, comes because:
"too much of our lives are spent adjusting our expectations, tweaking our standards, and managing our reputations in light of other's accomplishments."
Instead, like Cuomo, we might just embrace our problems as uniquely our own and solve them in our unique ways. While we're doing that we become self-protective about letting the angry in who are on a mission to punish us. We also don't compare the pickle we're in to anyone else's cucumber.
Matousek has published "Ethical Wisdom." It's available in bookstores. Or you can purchase it here online. [Disclosure: After Matousek read my review of "Ethical Wisdom," he asked my firm Download Socialmediamarketing to represent him.]
He is a good friend that speaks well of us behind our backs.
Posted by: supra footwear | December 31, 2011 at 09:00 AM