What's more important, in the grand scheme of things, STRIVING and failing or?

Question

coasting through an average life when you could have an extraordinary life if you just apply yourself?
Is it the STRIVING that matters more than the succeeding?

It's been said that life is a test, nothing but a test. We're here to prove ourselves worthy of a more exalted life. I think of this life as a giant school. When we're young we're in grade school/elementary school. When we're teens and don't know what the heck is going on, but have a pretty good idea that things are changing, it's like we're in middle school/junior high. When we're adults it's like we're in high school, and some particularly bright, wise "students" go on to college but there aren't many who do so (I'm thinking those who change the world, the great thinkers and doers in the history of the world). Judgement is like graduation, where we find out where we'll spend eternity. There will be those who were A students, B students, C students, and a very few who didn't pass.

If you have the potential to be

an A student if you put forth a little effort (striving) but you don't, so you're a C student. Isn't that worse than the student who put for all the effort he had and still failed?

I appreciate all of your answers. To my LDS friends, thanks I agree. I'm hoping to pick a non-LDS answer. Right now the top three are Dharmanator, Papadoc, and ongoodship. I also appreciate MissE729's POV. I'll pick an answer later this afternoon.

Answer 1

But you know there are wealthy, knowledgeable people who are miserable as well as the poor, ignorant, so, you've got to define what is an extraordinary life for you. If you strive to be the CEO of a large corporation, and work singlemindedly for many years, it's possible to look back and wonder where your life went, but if you spend your life trying to act unintelligent and don't live up to your potential, that probably wouldn't be a great life. But is extraordinary to you more like Arnold Schwarzenneggar or Mother Theresa, not that they don't have some similar qualities. Some people would consider a generous humanitarian who gave much to charity including volunteering, starting valuable foundations, being environmentally conscious and being there for friends and family, someone to admire, where someone else would call life a success if they'd travelled the world on a motorcycle living town to town, living without heavy concerns. Since most people can't just say for sure, or would want some combination if these and other things, anyone has to consider something very specific to them: What am I good at (consider your childhood interests and talents) and what do I like? Pray and consider where God wants you to use those interests and talents that are specific to you.
Remember that life's a journey, not a destination.
Notice that one major contributor to unhappiness is expectation...when things don't happen the way we expect.
As a Christian, striving to be what God wants us to be can be overwhelming if you believe you have to do something about your sins, then go show God your work. The Bible tells us that we can't change ourselves, we need God to change us. So it is working together with God, surrendering to His changes in our attitude and desires, and learning from lessons he puts into our lives, by comparing what could possibly be learned from an experience to what we know about God from His word, the Bible. There's confusion these days that just wishing you could control yourself, but just accepting you can't really do anything right in God's eyes is the way to be a good Christian. This thinking leaves people wallering in sin, far from God's favor, hoping to be excused from their choices. But if they would pray and be changed by God, slowly they could lose their desire for sin, seeing that it leads to suffering in this life. Sin leads to destruction and death. Think about any sin and follow through how it affects a person's life, it destroys good things. But people get tired of trying and failing when it comes to sin. It's as if they need some supernatural power to help them quit being tempted and giving in. That's exactly what they do need! But could anyone who created a simple universe have the power to help me? He has the power to help change your desire for those things that tempt you and the power to keep you from being tempted. But the liar that is Satan will tell you that living that way is boring, or that it's taking you too long to become what God wants you to be like and what God created you to be, and he'll amplify any mistake you do make to make it seem worse than it really is, and any lie he can tell you to get you to choose your own destruction. Continuing to strive and not be thwarted by evil even when you have let yourself and God down in the past, AND the success of leaving death and destruction out of your life as much as you're able to each day, I believe, makes for an extraordinary life!

Answer 2

Pick your battles. There's no point putting all of your effort into everything just to burn yourself out. Work out where you can apply yourself best, and rest when you don't need to. Above all, don't stress about it.

Better to be a balanced C student than a burned-out wreck of an A student.

We are all born unequal. Some people don't have to try hard, some do. There's a choice in how you apply yourself and there's a choice in how you live with what you were born with. Balance is the key.

A very relevant example: As an autistic, I was born without the abilities needed to make good social interaction. I had the choice to live with it or do something about it. I made some effort to learn basic interaction skills but I chose not to go too far with it. It is physically painful to be around people for too long, so there was no point striving too hard with this particular battle. On the other hand I also wasn't born with the natural ability to develop the mental pathways that would let me understand people. This particular battle I threw myself into with all the strength that I could summon, and as a result I have become amazingly good at it.

Pick your battles, but also remember the battle isn't over until you have won.

Answer 3

I believe that striving and succeeding are both important. You are right about just coasting through life and never making any effort. That is not the proper way to live life to its fullest - we gain nothing from that experience. But to always strive for the best is to succeed on some occasions, and to learn important lessons when we do not succeed. Therefore all attempts provide a benefit - success on some occasions and lessons learned on all other occasions.

It is the striving that is most important then, because striving brings success sometimes and sometimes understanding.

Answer 4

I think it is really both. While we all are blessed with trials, adversities, and skills, we all can succeed... I don't think that if you really strive to the fullness of your potential, it cannot and will not be classified as failing. To achieve exaltation, you cannot fail. I think that God has blessed all of us with the ability to achieve immortality and eternal life if we strive to do so completely. You cannot fully attain exaltation without striving to do your work on this Earth to your very maximum potential, and if you truly strive to your maximum potential, you cannot fail -- you can only succeed.

If you coast through an average life when you have the potential to be extraordinary, you have not truly succeeded - true success is performing to your maximum potential... "living life to the fullest", if you will. Nothing bothers me more than when these very talented, perfectly smart kids drop out of school or just act like trouble-makers (for example, see the currently on-going Adam Jones saga... he's a football player recently suspended w/o pay for the whole season... he's always been a misbehaved kid, which is a shame because through out HS and college, he was always one of the smartest, and even now with the Tennessee Titans, he was one of their best players... and through his misbehavior [he was arrested or involved in 10 arrests], he's pretty much ruined his entire life).

To summarize, I don't think you can strive and fail. If you don't live up to your maximum potential, you haven't really truly strived to be the best person you can be.

Answer 5

O.K....a bit of confusion here...let's reset...the priorities that we set and standardize ourselves by are for here alone...they are people-created human things. In our reality, there are no such dualities like good & bad, up & down, win & lose, dumb & smart...yes, there are levels of experience, understanding, & knowledge...these we gain in through the lifetimes we plan & do.

We cannot "fail" at a lifetime...you may walk away with less than you wanted to, but you always come Home with more than you left with...you are your only judge of that. The one stifle you could possibly put upon yourself is suicide, in which you would nix the lifetime you just did, and have to redo the same situations in another almost immediately...your opportunity to make wiser choices, but still a longer time away from Home than you originally anticipated...See???

Hope that kind of helps...Good Journey!

Answer 6

Yes, striving is more important than fighting and in the end striving is the only thing that matters.

Answer 7

for me succeeding is more important than striving. for others it can be different.

I feel better at ease when things go well and are done, finished, id dont like al the chaos that i have when striving for something. fortunately the two go together

Answer 8

The most important thing is to get back up when you fail.

Answer 9

In the religious world, yes.

In the business world, no. The business world is results-driven. Whatever works and is effective should be rewarded and is more "noble".

Answer 10

striving

gw