Love this post! Also, seeing your link in a subsequent post to a poem by Jack Gilbert reminded my of this poem by him, about failure and mistakes. It contains one of my favorite lines of poetry ever: "But anything / worth doing is worth doing badly." :)
Just saw this post, a bit late, and I can so relate to your older kid! I grew up in a university town where striving for perfection was the norm, and my temperament definitely didn't help. Since then, I've come to associate a sort of reverence for failure and mistakes with tech bros and the worst kind of self-help. So I appreciate how you frame this in a way I can relate to. It's still a struggle to move beyond the need for perfection later in life. Is there anything you've found particularly helpful in learning a growth mindset?
Love this post! Also, seeing your link in a subsequent post to a poem by Jack Gilbert reminded my of this poem by him, about failure and mistakes. It contains one of my favorite lines of poetry ever: "But anything / worth doing is worth doing badly." :)
Failing And Flying by Jack Gilbert
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.
Wish I had seen this earlier!!! I've already got the bevvy in hand!
Just saw this post, a bit late, and I can so relate to your older kid! I grew up in a university town where striving for perfection was the norm, and my temperament definitely didn't help. Since then, I've come to associate a sort of reverence for failure and mistakes with tech bros and the worst kind of self-help. So I appreciate how you frame this in a way I can relate to. It's still a struggle to move beyond the need for perfection later in life. Is there anything you've found particularly helpful in learning a growth mindset?