Sometimes you get everything you think you deserve ... other times you blow a 3-0 first leg lead and get left with nothing but questions.
Welcome to “Couldn’t be me”, a weekly advice column where I solicit your personal dilemmas and help out as best as I can. Have something I can help you with? Find me @_Zeets.
Humans tend to be idealistic. When the world doesn’t reward us for things that we think we’ve earned, we are often placed in shock. Sometimes it’s because we’ve failed as individuals, and underestimated the challenges ahead — say, how difficult it is to defend what seems like an insurmountable lead. Other times, it’s because of something beyond our control. Either way, dealing with reality when it doesn’t turn out like we expected can be a humbling and harrowing experience.
Ernesto: Hi Zito,
I thought that my team was surely going to qualify for the final. It was our main goal coming into this season. We won the first leg of the semifinal 3-0 at home, and the team that we were facing were without two of their best players. Though the first leg’s score was a bit deceiving, I didn’t think there was any way that they could score four goals against us, or that we wouldn’t score even one against them. Then it happened. It was such a shock. But the even worse thing is that last year we collapsed in a similar manner at the same stage against another team. I don’t know what to do, how to inspire this team for next season, or how to face them and not feel as if I’ve let them down.
CBM: Ernesto, I’m going to be honest with you: You probably don’t have to worry about how to inspire the team going forward. I think that deep down you know that, along with everyone who saw your team collapse spectacularly for the second year in a row. You should take this time to think more about the long walks that you will be taking, and the things that you’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t because your job was too time consuming.
You should think about how big life could be away from managing a team. I’m surprised that you’re still managing them at the time this article publishes. I honestly thought they were going to fire you right after the game ended, strike you from their history books, turn your name into a curse, and burn all of your belongings as a way to do away with the evil spirits that you have brought upon their club.
I know you’ve done some really great things the last few years, but you’re going to have to accept that there might not be any coming back from this one. That’s life sometimes. Once you’ve been chased out — either by the board of the team, or by the protesting fans who will surely swarm the offices if you’re not fired — then you can take a few years off, relax, and enjoy life in old age.
Just make sure to never visit Barcelona again.
Gigi: I’ve been thinking lately how living is a deliberate hard ass task that we choose every day.
So I turn 30 at the end of the year. I’ve always strictly been focused on my academic life and my future career. I was never one of those people who thought I needed to be married, have kids, etc., by a certain age. I had complete tunnel vision on degree, masters, job.
Suddenly I’ve started thinking I’m behind everyone, which I know is stupid. But I feel like I misjudged the task of completing my dreams and, well, what feels like the start of my full adult life. I’ve realized maybe, at the back of my head, that I thought by now I would have already had my dream job, etc., when I always thought I would never put a timeline on those things.
And I’ve been through the shittiest of times, had/having set backs I never thought I would have. I think I’ve unknowingly thought that certain struggles I had in my undergrad meant I would have less struggles with things after that, like I had been through enough suffering and done my penance.
Which is foolish as fuck, I know, but I was trying to be optimistic. So yeah I misjudged the task of life, how hard it can be, and how much it doesn’t owe you anything because you suffered at one point.
CBM: This doesn’t seem uncommon. I think that most of us misjudge the task of life.
When you’re young and you think about your future, it’s impossible not to be idealistic. Even when you imagine the worst problems that you will face, your ideal self always finds a way to solve them. Conflict happens when your idealism meets the reality of the world. Most of us think that because we work hard and try to be good people that good things should happen to us. We tend to see suffering as a path to a final stage of happiness, because we look at our lives as heroic stories.
And in all of those stories, the individual goes through trials and tribulations, suffers, and then achieves victory. There’s some religious subtext to the pervasiveness of that idea, as well. But to me there’s nothing noble about suffering. The right thing to do is address the cause of suffering as quickly as you can and prevent it from becoming a bigger part of your story than it has to be.
You can certainly make use of suffering after you have escaped it. But in the moment, I think even the most optimistic of us understands that suffering reduces and limits life. Our idea that suffering will invariably be rewarded exists because we like to maintain an idea of order, of a story. But suffering is not penance for anything. It just is.
Like Kate Jacobs writes in Comfort Food: “Sometimes suffering is just suffering. It doesn’t make you stronger. It doesn’t build character. It only hurts.”
Back to the problem of life. I know many people like to say things like, “I don’t have any regrets. The things that happened to me and my choices made me who I am.” But I always find that weird and cliché. Few people are perfect content; we imagine our possible selves all the time. When you think of the future, you also think of the person you want to be, and when you look at the past, you think of the people that you could have been.
Which is to say, that even if you’re proud of who you are, there’s nothing wrong with having regrets. Because when you’re young, the world is open and seemingly full of possibilities, but as you grow older and follow certain paths, other paths close off. As every choice opens certain opportunities, it also closes others, and the older you get, the more limited you are to become a different version of yourself.
So there’s nothing wrong with feeling that you might have made a wrong decision. Those feelings come with being a person, and being aware of time and yourself within it. If you had made other choices, you would surely be faced with another set of problems and conflicted feelings that may or may not have been easier to handle.
Many of us have failed to meet the timeline of our dreams, and most of us make the mistake of comparing our lives against others, as if being alive enters us into universal competition. It’s hard to not feel like a failure when you see others doing well, and it’s legitimate to want to be in a better place if you’re capable of it. But you will never be happy if you consistently compare yourself, or if your joy is derived from being better than others.
I remember an old quote from (I believe) Dutch striker Robin Van Persie, when he was talking about his injury problems at Arsenal, and how whenever he had a good run of form, something bad would deter his progress.
He said: “Then I started over. Life is not always positive.”
Such a simple statement, and I think it is a perfect way to deal with life’s setbacks. When the world tries to break you, embrace the chaotic nature of being alive, that it’s no failure of your being. Then keep going after those dreams of yours.
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