Anyone with a bachelor’s degree in psychology or fan of The Big Bang Theory must be familiar with Schrodinger’s cat. To spare the gruesome details think of it this way, a cat is in the box and he could be dead or alive (details of why this is will be spared for squeamish readers), but the only way to know if this cat is dead or alive is to open the box. So until the box is opened, the cat is neither dead nor alive.
Let us add some real world application to this since not many of us (I hope) have a cat in a box. Assume you have just taken a huge exam, like the NC Bar exam (thank you Julie Lamberth for this example) and you are waiting to hear the results. Until you receive the results in your hand, you have neither passed nor failed so there is no need to stress. (Shameless inset to congratulate Laura Ross and Julie Lamberth for passing their respective state Bar exams)
Not everyone is taking a life-changing exam anytime soon so let us look at this in aspect of landing a job. Oftentimes after an interview we expect to receive an immediate decision of whether or not we got the job and if we don’t hear back immediately then we assume that we didn’t get the job. The truth could be that they want to interview everyone, or they need to do a background check before admitting you or simply you didn’t get the job. You won’t find out until they contact you so there is no need to get your “panties in a bunch”.
To summarize all this in a few simple words, you haven’t failed until you have the proof that you failed. And tying into yesterday’s post, every failure is technically a success if you look at it from the right angle sooooooo, you haven’t failed until you have proof you have failed and after that it is up to you to determine how successful that failure was. (Anyone else enjoying my rambling rants as much as I do?)