Wednesday, January 9, 2013

The Accomplishment Reevaluation Letdown Therapeutic Centre



Have you ever done something that made you really feel good about yourself, only to later take a close look and realize it wasn’t really such a great accomplishment after all? Maybe even to the degree where you kinda felt like an idiot?

We at the Accomplishment Reevaluation Letdown Therapeutic Centre can help!

Everyone deals with failure in their lifetime – even Charlie Sheen! – and failure plays an important part in the learning process.

Failures can be large or small.  Sometimes the failure is spectacular and public, other times it is personal and private – known only to one desperate to not be found out.  And failing hurts!  The pain may be sharp and overwhelming, or dull and persistent, but it is never absent.  Even with the most dangerous kind of failure - “Unrealized Failure” – the pain is not absent, merely delayed.

The Pharmaceutical & Psychiatric Evaluation Industry Standards Board recognizes two categories of Unrealized Failure:

  1. The Delayed Realization of True Failure
  2. The Delayed Realization of Lesser Accomplishment

The delayed realization of true failure is usually very short-term and psychologically differs very little from "outright failure".  This is often referred to as “own goal syndrome", and can be adequately counseled by any capable licensed Failure Specialist. 

At the Accomplishment Reevaluation Letdown Therapeutic Centre our focus is on repairing the much greater psychological and professional damage that can result from the delayed realization of a lesser accomplishment.

The psychological needs of those who have "achieved a lesser accomplishment" are many.  They struggle with self-image issues – embarrassed that they didn’t realize they hadn’t quite achieved the triumphant victory they’d assumed – not knowing how to fit in since they’re not truly a “failure” as they did in fact accomplish something  – questioning whether they are morally obliged to look up all those they’ve entertained with “old war stories” in order to update them as to why they shouldn’t have been so impressed after all, etc.

We help our clients realize that they’re not “Failures”, just “Lesser Achievers”!

They come from all walks of life:
  • Film Directors forced to trade Academy expectations for disappointing opening weekend receipts.
  • Retail Managers reassessing their pet sales campaigns following the Christmas returns.
  • Scientists who’ve built entire careers – even won awards! – based upon recently disproven theories.

Hiring Managers and Highway Planners deal with this sort of disappointment all the time, but the rest of us, accustomed to success, can be severally disarmed and damaged by such an experience!

[Unpaid Testimonial – “John” – Director of Fleet Management at a major shipping company]

  • “I was considered a spreadsheet wizard, but I made a simple mistake in a mileage formula which threw off the fuel economy calculations for the entire fleet, pushing us dangerously over budget and risked stranding our entire rolling stock in transit.  Even though I caught the error myself, it was only after three quarters had passed and the year-end accounting was underway.  The Accomplishment Reevaluation Letdown Therapeutic Centre helped me capitalize on that experience, which should be a great asset in my next position.”

[Unpaid Testimonial – “Bart” – Software Entrepreneur – Former New Office Build-out Construction Worker]

  • “Three decades ago, because I was extremely angry with our jobsite foreman, I decided to walk off my rage after work, and ended up walking from the corner of Wilshire & Bundy in Santa Monica, over to Sunset Boulevard, and along Sunset through Beverly Hills into West Hollywood and down San Vicente Boulevard to the Beverly Center and Cedars Sinai Hospital.  It was eventful, and it took me all night long. I caught a bus back to Santa Monica and got back just in time for my shift.  We put in a 16-hour day, towards the end of which I was working in extremely close quarters when my drill seized on a screw, jerked, and broke my nose.  While I lay on the floor laughing uncontrollably with my closest and oldest friend and coworker, and trying to get my nose to stop bleeding, I relayed the story of my previous night’s walk to one of our local guys.  I didn’t live in LA, but he had for his entire life, and he told me I’d walked a good 35 miles. It certainly felt like it.  So I’ve since spent the majority of my life regaling friends and family with the story of “that night I walked 35 miles through the hills of LA” and of all the odd and dangerous things I encountered.  Recently, thanks to the measuring tool in Google Earth, I revisited that route and learned that it was actually just a little bit less than ten miles.  The Accomplishment Reevaluation Letdown Therapeutic Centre is helping me deal with this tremendous diminishing of myself in my own eyes, and with what I should say if I’m prodded to revisit the tale at our next family gathering.”

-------

Let’s open the phone lines! 
Call Now!  Operators are standing by!

[Brrrrrring!  Brrrrrring!] 
“Accomplishment Reevaluation Letdown Therapeutic Centre Hotline, how can I help you?”

“Yes, I’m calling because I recently voted for Obama, but with everything he’s been trying to do these last few weeks, plus my paycheck suddenly being smaller all of a sudden, I think I’m feeling that “buyer’s remorse” thing my cousin says they’re talking about on the Internet. But I h’aint seen nothing about it on the news.”

“You voted for Obama?”

“Yes.”

“And you just now realize that you’re feeling bad about having done so?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“YOU!  LOSER!”
[Slam!]

4 comments:

  1. If you're at all familiar with comedian Arj Barker (in whose class I am definitely NOT, and I know it), you can probably tell that I'm envious he once supposedly won an award for "the joke with the longest setup".

    ReplyDelete