The Fear of Failure

In our modern society there are lots of pressures to succeed. Whatever that means. Most of us absorb the idea that we need to succeed in life and thus they have the corollary fear of failure. One of my favorite movies is “The Razor’s Edge” with Tyrone Powell. It is the story of a young man in the 1920s who has the opportunity to make it big in conventional jobs but he isn’t interested. Instead he follows an alternative path which leads him to India where he seeks enlightenment. His friends who followed the conventional career path experienced terrible lives when most of them were wiped out in the great depression. Even one who made it big financially was mainly interested in earthly status which doesn’t’ make a difference in the long run. My point is that we need to be thoughtful about how we envision the future of our lives so we live life with meaning and don’t have unrealistic expectations. Thinking about life this way is the first way to avoid having a fear of failure. In this book we review the reasons people have fears of failure, persons who changed failure into success, and how to modify our lives to change our fears of failure into a path for success and happiness.