“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.”

Ghandi wrote this and it beams around a building next to our campus, along with various other mystical things said by mystical and intelligent or mystically intelligent people.  I read it everytime I go to lunch.

It's very pithy, but essentially wrong.  It's all well and good in working hard and gaining satisfaction from the work, but surely if it all goes tits up at the end, a good deal of wailing and mourning is needed if we are to grow?

Falling back on something vague comfort about "the taking part that counts" tends to fall short of where we should really be.  Rather, grieve, mourn, wail and express that emotion of defeat, rather than shutting that part of the heart down in deference for some ideology that it didn't really matter anyway.  I mean, where does that leave the satisfaction in achievement?  And if there's no satisfaction whether we succeed or fail, why bother to succeed?

Of course it lies in the achievement.  That's the very reason we endeavour - to achieve, not to fail.  To grow means to confront the failure, express it, get that part of us working again and wrestle with what happened, to learn, adapt and grow - taking with us the knowledge that we've gained from doing it.  Sure, you might have failed, but you're further ahead than when you started, having never tried before.  Now you've got that experience and can use it as you move forward.

That doesn't take away from achievement not being the only source of satisfaction.  Of course, there are things to be learned in the doing part, experiences gained, relationships with co-workers to be cherished.  But if that's all there is, and we remove any satisfaction from success of the objective then there's very little point in doing anything...

So, sorry Ghandi - but I'm not with you on this one.  Great work on the non-violent protest though.