The problem with "All in".

So, it starts with a simple option amongst options. Whatever that may be, you start analysing it. The pros, the cons. What's interesting about this option is the importance of the prize. You start daydreaming about the pros like they will lead you to the promised land, but there's a catch. In order to harvest this fulfillment, you know that you gotta go all in. No other way around it. "All in" means giving it your all. Invest all of your time, all your focus, all of your energy, but most of all invest your faith. You have got to believe wholeheartedly in yourself and in your cause. Yeah. Of course I got this and of course it's worth it. Before you call me arrogant or a cloudwalker, let me explain why this of course is so inevitable and what it exactly means to place yourself in that mentality. It's no game.

You know that important things don't come easy. Much desired changes don't come easy. Not a single good thing in this world comes easy. It's gonna be a very intense and exhausting struggle, physically, mentally and emotionally. It's going to wear you out completely and there are going to be loses along the way. Sacrifices that you'll have to make. A multitude of compromises. Collateral damage. Tough decisions. You'll have to adjust to a different kind of living where balancing means consistent thin handling upon a plethora of things and situations. At times you'll have to be stone cold, if only by pretence. You are going to be brushing off emotions only to keep your headspace as much constructed as possible, well aware that you are making a deal with the devil to buy some more time. Emotions don't magically disappear. They pile up in the corner of your subconsciousness until they one day become an avalanche. Did you get to touch the surface now? Yeah, you'd better be sure you're able enough to back this up and it'd better be worth it.

From experience, I've learnt that this warrior mentality is both a recipe for achieving an important goal, but also extremely risky. You see, the axiom goes as follows: To achieve important goal means I need to be in warrior mentality. Being in warrior mentality doesn't mean I'll achieve important goal.

The most devastating con of them all is losing. When you are in this mentality, the outcome gets imprinted on you. Losing feels like sudden death. Have you ever seen soccer players cry after losing a game? Well, it's not just a game for them. Once you've embarked on a trip such as this, there's reason behind reason behind reason you made belief beforehand and trained yourself to remain oblivious of the chances of failure. The odds are no longer relevant. When you are in the field you stay focused only on what you are doing and what drives you is vital ambition. Any kind of negative thoughts, unnecessary emotions feel like ball and chain around your ankle when you need to run like the wind.

Well, imagine just how many individuals might be fighting for the same prize. You're not an idiot, you know this, but just like some of them you have to erase this information. It serves nothing. All that matters is all that you can control. The rest you "simply" don't think about. Preparing for possible failure makes you dull and the whole point is to remain sharp the whole run through.

I believe most people don't get this. They can't understand. After a failure they might try to console you perhaps in their best intentions, but they don't seem to realize just how heavy the elephant that befell upon you is. They congratulate you with wide smiles upon achieving second commendation when what you really were going for, what you've paid in blood for was first award and the prize money your dreams were built upon. What's more vexing is that you have to admit that the winner(s) are indeed better than you. You have got to find a way and swallow this pill. Damn it, you can't help but wonder if it was much easier for the winner and this thought drives you crazy. It cripples your self esteem. Will you ever be able to catch up with him/her? Just how many boy and girl wonders are out there? Perhaps it's not them. It's you! You were deluded all along. You were never worth shit. What the fuck were you thinking for daring contemplating this option? Just how much desperate were you to even think you stood a chance?

You keep your temper and try to communicate your thoughts in a subtle way, so you don't spaz out on your friends, but this task is much more intricate than you originally thought it would be and by the time you hear, "Come on, don't take it so hard on yourself. At least you gained the experience and you can always try next time", you know there's no chance of getting through to them. Again? Next time? Are you crazy? I've just been obliterated! are just a couple of screaming thoughts that pass like bullets through your brain. You get a sense that your friends are cruelly ignorant to your reality and to the fight you put forth for such a ridiculous counterprice. Your ambitions must be a joke to them. On second thought, it's not their fault. It's not yours either. It's no ones fault. It's just what it is. You feel somewhat ashamed for having these thoughts about your friends that are at least seem to be trying to make you feel better and realise the vanity of... everything. You should have just answered with a smile and a "thank you". You are not ungrateful, but you just can't help it right now. Problem is that you are trying to go down with dignity, while what you really feel like doing is break down and cry, while the whole world grieves with you. Kindred smiles hurt you. They feel like charity and you detest it more than anything. But no, it's no ones fault. It's just... tough shit and you being overly emotional. Perhaps a little paranoid too.

Anyhow, this is but an example. It doesn't have to be a one-shot contest. This is the first thing that came into my mind, because it's a pretty straight forward example, furthermore this fucking incident, although not the first setback I've ever encountered in my life, not even the most tragic, really stigmatised me. Fun story is that for some minutes I tasted the victorious feeling, which made it double the fall for me. It was a comic contest and first prize was a whole scholarship, which translated to a hell lot of money. Just what I needed! The results would be printed on the magazine that organised it. Early in the morning, the day they came out I went to the kiosk to buy the newspaper that included this magazine and what I saw made me ecstatic. All the freshly printed magazines still bound in piles that lay on the ground had my illustration on their covers, exactly how I imagined it to be, "picture perfect" and what I felt was true bliss. Ι got swayed away by an unprecedented feeling with such depth and intensity, that I froze. I felt so... out of this world that I had to make sure I was not dreaming. This was it. It had all paid off. From all the contestants the hard earned victory was mine. All mine. I, me, mine!

So, I presume you get the picture by now. When I opened the magazine with trembling hands, just to find out that not only I hadn't won first place, or second, or third, not even first commendation, but second it did not compute. Nothing made sense any more. Not the laws of physics, not the laws of men, no nothing. My very atoms might have well decided that the law of attraction keeping my substance together had been nothing but a hoax all along and could freely disperse in the atmosphere whenever they felt like it. I mean, why not? Since everything goes... In a fewer words it felt like the universe had really fucked me over.

However, as I've mentioned this is merely one example. A baby step of defeat that might seem ridiculous to some, under the magnifying lense. It can be a dream job position or whatever venture that needs super planing and nerves of steel in order to achieve. Ambitious goals with heavenly prospects riddled with death traps. Things you are passionate about. Things which you believe once obtained will liberate you from your worries and shortcomings. They will stand as proof that you are heading towards the right direction; that your struggles were not all in vain. Opening your own business, taking a hefty loan, taking part in the Olympics, moving to a far away country, publishing a book, getting a PhD, sticking with a partner for the long run, buying a house, buying a car, finding the cure for cancer, getting a record deal. What you are looking for is openings. Chances. You have to act radically in order not to let them slip out of your hands. What you wish for is a better point of view. A clearer perspective. A gratifying change that will lift up your spirit and lead you further into a specific destination. A path in which you don't feel like an aimless wanderer. You've been contemplating about it, eyeing about what lies after the first dark corner. You've been mapping it out and I don't know if it's just me, but I view achievement in a specific area as part of one's identity. A leveling up. Maturing. Standing in one's strength. Don't tell me you don't find this reassuring.

I'm not talking about perfectionism. I was never an overachiever or even cared to be. Too much hassle to be always at the top of your game and for what? Besides, I need my spare time of procrastination to get reorganised. I'm talking about the very few battles you choose to fight, fully aware of the why. For me, when there's a prize involved it comes first. I know how superficial that sounds, but practical things once attained can't fail you. Their effect is immediate. I see them as solid escape routes. It's hard to differentiate between desires and needs after some point when it comes to emotions. You can become poetic and describe an emotional desire as essential as "the deserts miss the rain." You can't drink emotions and you most certainly won't die due to unfulfillment, but a single desire can hack your mind in ways that failing to attain it might feel like slowly dying from the lack of it. A change might feel vital for your growth and so you commit to it and give it your all and you'd better not think about complete annihilation. It's not a healthy option.

What I want to say is that it is a heaven - hell dynamic. The wins get you unstuck and might even become a pivotal point in your magnificent life, while vise versa the fails get you even more stuck and might even become a pivotal point in your pitiful life and quite frankly, for me the fails outnumber the wins and man, has it gotten heavy. I've placed all my bets on the upcoming final project just for recognition and now... well shit. It's gotten to the point where it feels a challenge taking this seriously and this is not the first time this has happened and the forecasts look ominous. All of them! I feel like there's a rainy cloud hovering above my head, every time I try to try hard. It's getting harder to filter out all the negativity in my mind. It's been such a long while since the last time I achieved something substantial or even heard a reassuring word upon anything and I mean anything, in any aspect, that I've started losing faith in myself in general and amidst it all, comes this fucking lock down to tighten the suspense and test my already worn out patience. Dreams are starting to feel like delusions again. My hands are tied and I haven't got the slightest clue when all of this is going to be over or what is going to happen with my final project. I've even tried channeling my energy to figure out a way around this, but one channel says fuckit and the other is transmitting grey snow. But hey, it's no one's fault. Nobody expected this. Nobody knows anything, understandably so. One thing's for certain though. We'll all be much poorer once this is over. Awesome. A much needed prediction at an utmost critical time.

There's a scene in the film "Parasite" where after a big storm the family's basement apartment floods with water and they have to settle with the rest of the unfortunate public in a stadium for the night. The son asks his father what is his plan and his father answers something that I've already thought of and observed decades ago. He says (along the lines), "Son, do you know what kind of plan never fails? No plan at all. If you make a plan life never works out that way. Look around us." Well, it works for some, but you're not blind. It's dreadfully obvious that it's a rat race and the odds are against you, it's almost impossible to aim high and keep a straight face. Whatever "high" means to you. For me right now it means keep on keeping on.

Not to paint it all black, on the other hand there's a speech in which Charlie Kaufman, the screenwriter of "The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind" talks about screenwriting and taking risks and it's so beautifully constructed and motivational, especially when he talks about failure. Once I heard this speech and perceived the restlessness in his tone it somewhat eased my mind. He said that failure is a badge of honor. He looks like he has been through his own trials and tribulations until he achieved his recognition, which established him. I wish I could simply see it like that. That I'm a brave artist stepping forth, testifying my soul's tributes to the critics, recharging my batteries just by self acknowledging my act, unafflicted by the negative response, but I'm not and I can't. The rules have changed and so has my perspective. What I need now is some sort of recognition and until I get it I'm gonna be sitting on burning charcoals and failure will mean disappointment, despair and dying dreams.

I hope that someday I'll find a way to wire up my brain more constructively and be able to lose more gracefully. Perceive the lessons and persevere when everything goes wrong and takes too long to get to the finish line.

Thank you if you've made it this far and I wish you the same.