I will be reflecting on a fable I wrote for leisure when I was in high school. It was written to capture my profound realization on the influence of mindset of highly effective people. Today, I revisited the document for the third time, reliving my memories and the moment of epiphany from having this thought.

The fable goes.
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Every man is born in a dark room with three fears.

A man fears the darkness, trying to find his way out…
The man finds a light switch, but is too afraid of seeing the reality…
The man has to make a decision, but he fears making mistakes…

And so the man sits silently in the void of the room till the end of time, without ever realizing his ability to change his world with a flip of a switch.

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The fable ends in tragedy. A man waiting for nothing, submerged in darkness. A man who had surrendered to his fear of darkness, to avoid confronting other fears. A man who has no future, no potential.

Unlike Van Gogh, who expressed the pain of his tormented life through his paintings, this fable does not describe my personal experiences but reflected what I didn't want become. As a teen often pondering about his future, one question that I was — and still am — keen on was the difference between successful people and the rest. I noticed that miserable people were busy complaining about the situation, while the successful acknowledges the situation and addresses them.

A quote by Randy Pausch, "It's not about the cards you're dealt, but how you play the hand." really resonated with me and would often be recalled whenever I play card games with friends that shouts "I already lost" as soon as they see their poorly dealt hands. Although I believe the hand you're dealt do play a role in the range of potential, it's the strategy that you are able to craft with the resources you have that makes you a good tactician. From my interpretation of this quote, I began to pay attention to why people even complained. Of course, complaining to seek comfort or help are justified but complaining for the sake of complaining didn't make much sense to me. There must be something here.

I remember the revelation I had when I understood that complaining is a mechanism to shift blame in order to cast safety nets when the desired outcome isn't achieved. It is infallible to attribute failure to others when outcome isn't as expected. Phrases like "I lost because my hands were poor", or "I didn't get a good grade because I don't like my teacher" were all too familiar as a student.

It may be valid that complaining eases the mental stress in times of failure but I believe that if this behavior manifests, it can lead to a crippling fear of failure. Much like an AI that is programmed to not lose a game of Tetris will pause the game indefinitely, a man who is programmed to not make mistakes will choose to stick with the status quo. The exact same fear that the man in the dark has towards flipping the light switch. When the fear of failure overcomes our desire for success, staying static, and avoiding change becomes much more attractive.

I wrote this fable to remind myself of the entity I wanted to avoid becoming. Today, a few years after it was written, I am making progress. Although I am occasionally drawn to "playing it safe", it has certainly helped me distinguish between sticking with the status quo to avoid mistakes or sticking with the status quo because its a better move.