You'd never know it of course. In an era where social media allows individuals to craft idealized versions of themselves for public consumption, you'd never realize that failure and disappointment exists for others.
Princeton University psychology assistant professor Johannes Haushofer decided to post a CV of every professional and academic failure he's encountered in his career, including rejections from degree programs, research journals, and funding for projects. Haushofer did this to "balance the record" in the public sphere and hopefully encourage others facing similar disappointments.
New "publication": My CV of Failures! https://t.co/d8ot5vvynY— Johannes Haushofer (@jhaushofer) April 23, 2016
As Haushofer wrote on his website:
"Most of what I try fails, but these failures are often invisible, while the successes are visible," he noted.
"I have noticed that this sometimes gives others the impression that most things work out for me.
"As a result, they are more likely to attribute their own failures to themselves, rather than the fact that the world is stochastic, applications are crapshoots, and selection committees and referees have bad days."
So when life has you down because you're somehow reenacting the lyrics to a stereotypical 1970s-era country song, when life is really just miserable, realize even an Ivy League professor has had those days, too.
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