Does Fear of Failure(FOF) ultimately makes us a loser?

As I was wading through the maddening Chennai traffic en-route to work, a familiar sight greeted me. An auto rickshaw driver blatantly came on the wrong side of the road and bludgeoned his way through the traffic (with absolutely no regard for the anguish it was causing the other folks on the road) only to get stuck at the next signal. The interesting point is that he would probably have reached the same point even if he had followed the traffic rules. This set me thinking on what triggers this kind of behavior. Many of us are familiar with the concepts of the zero-sum game and the Prisoner's dilemma which are principles that do dictate human behavior by piggy-backing on one of mankind's pet phobia - The Fear Of Failure (FOF)

Thinking aloud, one begins to wonder if we are all victims of FOF in some way or the other. Our lives, habits and behavior are getting increasingly determined by not what we really want but by the peer pressure or competition which are nothing but manifestations of FOF. Andy Grove in his landmark book "Only the paranoid survive" advocated the need for firms and individuals alike to reinvent themselves so that they can be relevant to the markets or enterprises that they serve. To ensure that this is followed, he had propagated that both firms/individuals should be paranoid about the next wave that is coming and ensure that they ride the wave. Through FOF, we seem to be carrying this principle to rather ridiculous levels. Increasingly employees are getting upset not by their ratings but about better ratings that their colleagues obtain. They want to get promoted not because they performed well but because some other guy is getting promoted. Even parents or grandparents fall victims to this phenomenon as they indulge in a competition to showcase the achievements of their little kids. I came to know of an acquaintance who claimed that his 3-year old grandson could actually boil vegetables (LOL). In the name of competition or even innovation, we are slowly but surely becoming like the auto rickshaw driver. The key point to note is that this attitude did not really propel the driver to beat the traffic. As more people started adopting the same, it only lead to chaos and the driver actually had to spend more effort to reach the same point which he could have very well got to with minimal effort by following the traffic rules in the first place. Firms are no different. Advertising for instance is becoming more and more mean with firms trying to portray the virtues of their products by pointing out not what they have but by pointing to what their competition does not have.  As more and more folks start doing the same, the competitive edges start getting diluted leading people to an even higher level of FOF.

FOF ensures that its advocates stay in a constant state of tension. They need to be aware of all that their peers or colleagues are doing. In many a case, this state of tension makes them undertake immoral/unethical practices that possibly may help them get some temporary competitive edge but ultimately does take its toll in different ways. Paul Coelho in his masterpiece “The alchemist” mentions that "If you try hard enough, the whole universe conspires to get it done for you”. While I subscribe to this view, I also believe in the fact that “The universe manages to retain the balance by ensuring that with every gain, there is always a loss”. In a war, every inch of land is gained through loss of lives. In most business, every marginal point increase in market share seems to come with ever increasing costs that sometimes seems to be dilute the business case for the increase in market share. Every penny obtained through illegal means brings with it a loss of peace of mind. By being victims of FOF, the practitioners do gain temporary fame or quick wins, but generally tend to lose their peace of mind or state of health.

In my personal experience, I have found that discarding this FOF gives one the tremendous confidence to do the right thing. One still has to subscribe to the rules that govern but the amount of support that the universe provides is just amazing. However discarding this attitude is not very easy and at best, I have been able to stay clear of it for weeks if not months. It does have a funny way of reinforcing its ugly head once too often.

It is indeed times like this that I keep telling my 7-month old daughter “never to grow up” lest she be engulfed in the flame of FOF. I am sure that excellence can be achieved without FOF. And that possibly is the way to make the world a better place as we would all be better human beings. But is anybody listening? After all it is time we replace the "what's in it for me?" with "what is the right thing to do?"