Until death, all defeat is psychological

Setbacks, disasters and calamities needn’t stop you.

Life is full of setbacks. At the time difficult events can seem impossible.

But if you are not yet dead, if you are merely down, then it means you are not out. Being not out means you are still in. And being still in means everything; it means you can make it.

Most defeat happens inside out minds.

Most things are survivable

Most negative events in our life are not final, even the negatives. They are survivable. Much of what makes them feel catastrophic happens inside our heads not the objective world.

This is an old observation, a stoic argument. The event is less important than our reaction to it, how we choose to interpret it.

Events come and go, they are always happening. It is their effects that linger in our minds.

It is not unexpectedly losing your job that sinks you, for example, but your belief in what it means. What the job loss says about you or your competency. How easily you can get a replacement. What is says about your skills or your confidence.

Our reactions result from a combination of factors, our attitudes, our learned behaviours and our character. Once we understand this, we learn we can change how we react to events. We can teach ourselves different responses.

We admire the resilient

The people we admire are those with resilience. They take the punishment then get back on their feet.

We can adopt this approach too. We can see life as a series of challenges rather than defeats.

Because they are survivable these challenges become learning experiences to embrace and not things to avoid.

This changes us, and accepted on a wide scale, as it once was, it matures a society. It produces the grit needed to tackle real hardships.

This is in marked contrast to today’s world where even minor inconveniences can trigger calls for changes including government legislation. Witness the moral panic during Covid where useless paper masks became mandatory in some places despite the evidence they had no positive effect. This was to manage feelings, a focus on emotional thinkers unwilling to confront their need for security blankets.

This was a literal psychological hardship, something they had to think their way through but proved unwilling to do. So the rest of us had to conform to their madness.

That minor hardship was banished along with the resilience it would have created. This in turn reflects an affliction common in today’s world. A fantasy that life ought to be a certain way rather than how it really is.

Social harmony, zero poverty, sickness or suffering are fictions, however aspirational they seem. They distract us from reality. They are fake comforts, ensuring we avoid the effort we must all endure to adapt to the world as it really is. Instead we try to banish the source of the pain.

We have wars on poverty, drugs and everything else. These have no effect whatsoever; they just persuade the already weak minded they don’t need to resist temptation or develop coping strategies. It outsources the responsibility for life, a dangerous mistake.

Those destroying our societies are lost in such activities. They console themselves they are fighting a good fight. But they are in fact embracing mental models the more realistic reject.

Only the real world and its feedback really exist. When we attend to that our lives become simpler. The resilient we admire instinctively do this. They accept reality and adapt. They change their attitude and their mentality to accommodate the world and in doing so they develop.

A grounding in reality is a practical way to navigate life. It is also empowering. It encourages a sense of agency in life.

When we lose this, and feel life is not under our control, we trigger many negative consequences. Depression, anxiety and fear. Retaining a strong sense of control over our lives counters these negatives.

This drives people mad. They look for outcomes that are impossible. The key is to accept what the world is telling us then adapt. This is the source of resilience. It is crucial to fully live.

We must control our own minds, and we do this by practicing that control.

All defeat is learning

All defeat is learning. It is experience however unpleasant. Those who embrace defeat-as-useful learn faster. They also build a more positive character as they survive more of what life throws at them.

If we combine this with a strong sense of agency we can often turn our lives around even after calamities. Practiced control leads to confidence, a multitude of experiences to reflect upon where we navigate some calamity, we rise up and ultimately conquer.

Treating setbacks as psychological phenomenon to navigate is a superpower that can unlock immense potential. It concerns itself with how life really is and is resistant to easy excuses. It forces us to confront our shortcomings.

Until the ultimate end, our death, we have an opportunity to treat defeats as learning opportunities, as something to reflect upon. In doing so we unlock the grit needed to flourish, something more of us need.

So if you are not yet dead, if you are merely down but not out, then there is hope.

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