Ceiling and Reality

We have seen dreams fulfilled. We have seen success stories, we have seen business ventures gain height, people from modest background become superstars.

But, in life, as much as we treasure the dreams, as much as we like those stories, there is a truth, and it is there are ceilings for everyone. Referring to my friend, Anthony, 's story, a koi can grow bigger in lake than pond, but there is a reality that some koi can only grow as big, for example, you don't see a koi grow as big as white shark (ignoring the possibility of genetic manipulation, of course).

In "Fooled by Randomness", the author talks about survivorship bias. That is, people tend to only pay attention to the one that succeeds. You can see how society emphasizes on success stories, while at the same time undermines failure.

Of course, failure is part of journey. You can not deny that for every success we have seen, we have not seen the countless number of failure there. And for every superstar we have seen, we do not see the countless wannabes that try and fail. When we have seen those stories, you can not deny that people who fail do not necessarily have none of the quality shown by those who succeed.

What I want to focus on is not the success, but the failure. The society tends to put a magnifying glass on success, therefore many people are not able to explain their failures correctly. There are tendencies for us to give a reasoning of success itself, as the result of self trying, perseverance, faith etc, and it results that most people think that it is something that we can control.

The fact is, there are so much things that we cannot control. We hate the ideas that Bill Gates is successful partly due to his luck, or Steve Job due to his timing. Yes, it is true that they are hardworking, and do not give up easily, but have we thought about many that have the same qualities and yet still fail?

I put my previous note and receive various responses. Some attributes it to my failure of understanding of life, some to my lack of fighting power, but some are very heartening, as they add the factor that is uncontrollable by human, namely God's will and external economic situation.

I know some of us do not like to put the idea of God's intervention in our life's equation. After all, we, human like control. We want control over our own room, we want our own computer, we want to control the channel from our couch. We are obsessed with control. And we attribute consequences in our life with our own control.

We life in an era where people idolized positive thinking, where internal attribution is much more preferred than external (locus of control: check psychology 101). And, sometimes too much of positive thinking, and too much of internal attribution can be dire. What is the ramification? We need God less. Notice that I say, we need God less, not we do not need God. God's role has been reduce to a side spectator, and He become someone that we call, when things go wrong and out of control. He is not the First anymore, but more backup plan.

I am just wondering, reflecting into my own life, have I gone with the world's current, going to God as a last resort, trying everything first, and find God when I got a ceiling? Or do I trust God since the beginning and ignore the idea of ceiling and dance along life's music? One could say that the optimal effort can be gained when you try your best, try to be in control, but, as I say before, that does not guarantee anything.