Set up to fail

I hate the phrase "set up to fail". More importantly, I hate the notion that failure is so horribly wrong. There was once a time where failure was how our "herd" was thinned. Now, it's barely an opportunity to learn. We have become so terrified of failure that we have a zillion symptoms to excuse and explain failure rather than acknowledge it.

I wonder how many potentially great distance runners we are destroying with behavior modifying stimulants. The symptoms of ADD and ADHD are blueprint behaviors for good distance runners. Seems we no longer try and channel energy into productive directions, rather we try and medically prune off whatever is undesirable.

It's sad, because it really is the potential for failure that makes life interesting.