Transcript

Failure Fatigue · Wanzology

Failure Fatigue Hey, what's going on, how ya doing? Wanz here, The Wanz that is welcome to another episode of WANZOLOGY!! We are in the dark days, the very dark days that happen every single year at about the same time. It is between Thanksgiving and New Year's, which is the longest, slowest, most stressful time of the year for most people, I think, and that's because expectations are higher, people are very, very cognizant of what they don't do or don't get to do or haven't done. They project how others are gonna feel without really any substantive evidence. Translation, everybody wants to buy everything for everyone, but when you can't afford anything and you can't buy anything, then you start feeling some sort of way because you presume you know how someone else is gonna feel. For the most part, you might be right. What does that mean? It means that someone is presumed, they're already gonna get something, and if they don't get it, then they will feel some sort of way about it. So it becomes this vicious circle of unmet expectations. Which drives feelings masquerading as emotions, thoughts come in, spawning actions, and people get hurt emotionally, sometimes physically, when people are just way out of bounds! I am in this situation myself with a computer. In a prior episode, I was explaining that my main computer that I record on for episodes and other things went down. It developed some power issue, and I tried for over two weeks to fix it. What happened after two weeks of trying and failing? What has set in, I call. Failure Fatigue. Meaning I'm tired of trying and not succeeding. What point do I realize that I won't succeed or that I must take a different action? Because I'm telling you, when you are trying to troubleshoot and repair something at the same time, especially when it comes to electronics, the odds are pretty good it's not gonna work. The odds are fairly decent that you're gonna fail. Now, what do you do when you don't wanna fail, you don't believe you should be failing, but you do? Once again, the unmet expectation. I've been building computers for 10 years, 15 years. I haven't bought a retail computer for my studio since, GOHERSH, 2008 or ’09? Yeah, somewhere around there. It's not like I don't know how to build them, it's just this time something was off. This time I did all the things that I would normally do, and the result was nil. So I question, after many attempts and failures, if I know something. I've failed so many times at doing something I've been able to do before. One of the worst things about getting older is that your body doesn't behave like it used to. I tried to cross the street a couple of days ago and tried to run, and at 64 years old, I don't run like I did at 34 or 44, or 54. I thought I was gonna fall down, because my legs just wouldn't behave. I couldn't pick 'em up and put 'em down like I used to. And I know I probably looked silly trying to run something that I've been able to do since I, I can remember. But that's the way it goes. The older we get, the more things we start to lose. So I'm not trying to panic about not being able to complete the task of building a new computer. It started with a power supply. That was the first place that my research, my quote, research took me to replacing the power supply, which is usually no big deal. This time I got a power supply, put it in the machine, and it didn't power the machine at all. The initial trouble I was having was the machine would start, run for a little bit, maybe 10 seconds, maybe 45 seconds, and then stomp and I'd power it on again and would do it all over again. So after the new power supply didn't fix my issue, I did a little more troubleshooting and thought, okay, well the power comes out and goes into what, the main logic board, otherwise known as the motherboard. So I ordered another motherboard, but I had to find a certain one because I am in the PC world with this machine. Some of my sound equipment doesn't play well without adaptation. There is something called a USB-C connection. You may have heard of it. If you've gotten a newer Apple device, you'll see that the charger looks different. How it plugs in looks different. That's USB-C connection. Now, PCs don't natively have those connections, so I have to adapt. The last motherboard that I had to buy had to have this certain type of USB-C connection known as “Thunderbolt”. It took a long time for me to find a “Thunderbolt” enabled motherboard, but I got it and it worked great, until now. Well, that same motherboard has increased threefold in price because they don't make it anymore, and the rarer something is the more expensive it costs. Okay, well, I'll order this other motherboard that has most of the stuff on it that my original motherboard did, then I can get an adapter card. Great. Motherboard comes adapter card, comes adapter card doesn't have all the right connections because I need to plug it into the motherboard into what's called a “header”. Well, the header plug doesn't match any plug that I've received with this adapter card. Great. So that's not gonna work. I try numerous different ways to get this adapter card to work, but it doesn't work. Great. So I go back and retrace my steps. What was the original problem? Oh, that's right. The machine would start and then just stop all by itself. One of the possibilities was that it was a heat issue. So the first thing I tried to do was replace what's called the cooler or the fan that sits on top of the processor and keeps it from overheating. And this is when the power issue started because it got the new cooler in and then the whole motherboard wouldn't power up anymore. Great. So now that I've gotten a new power supply, a new motherboard, and it still doesn't work great. Maybe I messed up the motherboard that I just bought. So I got another motherboard from another manufacturer and a cooler to put into this machine. When I got it in, it didn't work. So for the last five days, I've been trying to troubleshoot and figure out why am I not getting any power through the power supply to the motherboard so that everything else. OH!! I forgot, the power supply, the motherboard, the cooler, the processor. I also bought a new case because electricity comes from the power supply and goes through the case to the motherboard. No power, no lights, no fans spinning in the case. Five days later, I still haven't gotten it to work. Meanwhile, I have had to go into debt, Amazon debt, and I just gave up and bought a new machine. I really hope that I can adapt this card, this adapter card, to this new machine because I really don't know what I'm gonna do if that doesn't work. I'm tired of trying, hence, Failure Fatigue. Like when it snows and you're trying to get your car out of the driveway and you can hear the spinning of the tires, you see the non-movement of the car after a little while you turn off the car because what you're doing isn't working. My problem is, I really want this stuff to work so that my normal way, my usual way, my habitual pathway of doing things is not interrupted. Somehow fate has another idea. So is it time for me to change how I do things? Maybe. What I know right now is that there is a certain point where Failure Fatigue is a real thing, and when I mean a real thing, I mean it turns itself inside of yourself or myself, I should say and then I start losing confidence in my abilities to do almost anything, and that's bad. When I don't think that I can do something that I've done before and I can't figure out the reason why I can't be successful, it starts gnawing away at my confidence. I start redoing things. That old insanity thing, doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Once I realize I'm actually imitating insanity, well then I lose confidence in almost anything. Dishes don't get washed. Clothes pile up. Beds don't get made. Teeth don't get brushed. It's very, very hard sometimes to get out of it. Luckily, I'm a performer. The more time that I spend away from entertaining people, the worse I feel. I don't really even have to perform. I just have to go where there are performers, so I go watch somebody else play, sing or whatever, but then that Failure Fatigue sets in again because they're on stage and I'm not, and I wanna be, but it's just not my turn yet. Or I don't feel like I have a show that people would want to come see. Notice I said, I don't ‘feel’ like that's an expectation. I expect a certain amount of people who are labeled as my friends to come and see me and when they don't, it's disappointing. This has been a cycle that's been going on since middle school for me. If I don't succeed at something, somehow, some way I figure out how to take it out on my-self (two words) which is not healthy. Failure Fatigue can lead to the explosion, the blossoming of depression, and when depression happens, then it's this whole other process to get out of it, and that's where I am today. I'm in the process of trying to get out of a depressive state. How I got here was through the Failure Fatigue door. How do you recognize that Failure Fatigue, door repetition. Say you're trying to open a soda can and the little tab breaks off, but you weren't able to open it. How many times do you try to fiddle with that tab that broke off to open the can? Let's say you are trying to fill a receptacle with a liquid, and for some reason you end up pouring it on your hand a little bit. Well, how many times do you go back to trying to pour the liquid into the receptor successfully? Failure Fatigue. How many times do you call someone or text someone and realize that they aren't responding and so you stop? Failure Fatigue. Healthy people, I think, don't turn it on themselves and make it a manifestation of their own inability. I think they just say, “This is not the time.”, or, “Whoops! This isn't working, I'll do something else.” There are those of us who get stuck in failure, fatigue. I can only hope that you like I will be looking for someone to talk to about this. I have a couple of friends, they've seen this movie before and we talk about it until I can get ahold of them, I'm going to have to do what one of my previous psychiatrists recommended, which is go back over my ‘evidence’, otherwise known as my past, to see when I've been here before and to look for some similarity, a past resolution that worked, but don't keep it inside. That is my suggestion. Keeping things inside is bad, “Mmm-Kay?” Everything that has a beginning has an end, especially the bad things. So I will try not to get too down in the mouth about this Failure Fatigue and work my way out of it. If you're feeling this way, if this sounds familiar to you, there is a way out and you don't have to sit and wait for it. You know the things that you like, and I suggest doing something you like to improve your disposition. or go out and find someone to talk to. My dad used to say, “What's more important that you get the answer or where you get the answer from?” That's different for everybody, but I am known to talk to complete and total strangers about my personal problems thinking that maybe they have had the same problem and may have a different solution. One never knows until one tries, tries and tries again. That's all I got for this week. Y'all hang in there, keep breathing, and I will see you next week. Bye.