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Charles Schultz’ renowned comic strip, Peanuts, provides our life-lesson for today in the character of that loveable loser, Charlie Brown, an icon of the ill-fated underdog: determined, yet doomed. How has this ostensible loser won our hearts, despite losing time-and-time-again? What lessons can we learn from his loserliness to increase our own chances of becoming and remaining winners?
Breaking it down into success-relevant terms and concepts, we see that Charlie Brown actually has a lot going for him: he never loses hope, he keeps trying, and he constantly networks with his close circle of friends - expressing his goals, hopes, and dreams to one and all. He has certainly cultivated aspects of a pleasing personality, and he consistently maintains a positive mental attitude, at least with regard to those around him.
Why then does Charlie Brown remain such a loser? Okay, yes, the simple, “real” answer would be that Charles Schulz made him a loser. In the words of the inimitable Jessica Rabbit, “I’m not bad; I’m just drawn that way.” But, I digress. The useful answer, as I see it, is three-fold: Charlie Brown remains a loser due to his negative self-image, negative self-talk, and his unwillingness to divest himself of those who sabotage him at every turn. Rather than jettisoning his Dream Killers and the emotional baggage they produce, Charlie Brown forgives them again-and-again.
His characteristic expression “Good Grief” is self-defeating to the core. It’s an oxymoron: Grief is not good, nor is it good to have friends who give you grief. To quote the bard “What’s gone, and what’s past help, should be past grief.”
Charlie Brown anticipates being a loser. Experience fails to temper or modify his irrationally high mental models of others, from the belief in Lucy’s trustworthiness to the merits of the unobtainable little redheaded girl. He anticipates being a loser. Rather than learning from the past, he persists in reenacting the same behaviors hoping for a different result. Thus, he fails time and time again for the simple reason that he has failed to surround himself with those who will enable, support, and otherwise facilitate his success: Napoleon Hill’s creation of the Master Mind group.
This is Charlie Brown’s downfall in a peanut shell. His so-called friends are all out to sabotage his efforts. He believes in Lucy - who charges a nickel for listening and giving out bad advice, calls him a “blockhead,” and has never once held that football in place; pines after the little redheaded girl who ignores him; and allies himself with other misfits and outcasts from an insane beagle to another child who has yet to give up his security blanket (perhaps in part due to near-constant abuse from big sister, Lucy). Even his own family tends to degrade Charlie Brown, from the dog who is mostly interested in him as a meal ticket to his sister, Sally, who calls him “wishy-washy.” Finally, in Charlie Brown’s mental model of the world, nature itself conspires against him: raining out the one ballgame he had a shot at winning, and consistently animating trees to eat his kites.
Charlie Brown needs to review his past, change his behaviors, and cultivate relationships with those who can and will propel him toward success. In critically examining his past, he must identify the behaviors - his own and others’ - that have prevented him from achieving his goals. To do so would mark his turning point. In this maturation process, Charlie Brown needs to discover which talents he can develop through education and/or by engaging in successive approximations of a successful performance. Rather than repeatedly practicing failure, he could be coached and supported toward successful efforts. Experience of even small successes will help him to discover new talents, and with talent will come the confidence to move away from those Dream Killers and toward even greater success.
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