James Wilding's Weblog

Yes, fail fails. Mainly because most people use it to describe some vague sense of disappointment that [insert software/corporation/website/person here] isn’t working, without any suggestions about how to make the problem better.

Now of course, I’m not suggesting that you need to provide constructive feedback every time you complain. Everyone’s entitled to a moan. But “fail” sometimes smacks of arrogance: “I’m too important to even begin to explain why I’m disappointed here. The simple fact of my discontentment is enough.”

As a Buddhist, I think it’s necessary to avoid taking our mind at face value: a knee-jerk reaction to a problem, whatever word we use to describe it, doesn’t help us at all. All we’re doing is training our mind to react in an even more knee-jerk fashion next time, until we get pissed off at everything that goes wrong, and can’t do anything constructive to make things better.

A better reaction: “why am I disappointed — do I need to be?”. Don’t take your emotional reactions at face value: learn to be objective.

Long story short: “fail” is the 2010 equivalent of “am I bothered?“. Use it with humour, sure, but just don’t take it too seriously – it could ruin your life ;)