Types of FailureANY one who has been called upon, in the course of a busy life, toinduce people to work with him or at least to keep from hindering thetask in hand, must have had daily occasion for observing--to his immenseirritation, sorrow, or disgust--individuals who seem to suffer from amore or less complete paralysis of will.Such experiences are so frequent in the ordinary executive's life thathe ends by building up a museum of psychological types inside his mind,grouping his past tormentors according to their similarities orvariations, and recognising new ones at a glance--marking them withappropriate labels in order to govern his attitude toward themaccordingly.Here, for instance, is the 'Visionary," the "day-dreamer"--theindividual who is always having big ideas. He impresses us with hisglowing exposition of the first one; but we soon find there is nothingin it. He comes back with a second, and again we listen to him.hopefully. Finally after repeated disappointments we set him down in ourminds as a person who is never to be taken seriously.This man is a man whose brain is fertile in plans, schemes, intentions;but when he has made those plans, elaborated those schemes, announcedthose intentions, talking of them as though they were imminentrealities, he suddenly forgets all about them; or, indeed, if he does goso far as to attempt to carry them out, he shortly finds that they arenot so glorious as he had thought, loses interest in them, throws themaside, to come back with another set of plans, schemes, and intentions,which he puts forward with the same results. If we, for our part, soonlose faith in this person, he never loses faith in himself; soover-bubbling, so irrepressible, so uncontrollable is this faculty hehas for conceiving grand conceptions and dreaming great dreams.Here again is another sort of person--the timid, over-cautiousindividual, the man who is never sure of himself, the man who never getsanything done; because, when he sets out to do a piece of work, he findshis mind obsessed with all the possible consequences of the steps he isabout to take, tries to guard against them all; and, since suchpossibilities are infinite in number, shifts uneasily from fear to fear,till he ends by never starting.Or still again we meet the "broken spirit," the "discouraged man," theperson who seems bound to a past that will never return, who cannotadapt himself to the present, and is ever helpless and inactive beforethe problem of the moment.One could think of numberless other "types"; but these three will besufficient for our purposes. What is the matter with such people? Thefirst, we might say, lacks "executive ability," practical insight intothings--in the language of the philosopher, concreteness; the secondlacks courage, determination, initiative; the third lacks enthusiasm,buoyancy, healthy interest in life.What I am going to say, however, is that they are all three deficient inthe same thing: they are all deficient in will--in the will that meansconcreteness, means courage, means interest in life. And what, we mayfurther ask, do they have to compensate for their deficiency? Theyhave nothing--or to use philosophical terms again, they have Non-beingitself; and that is the terrible thing about their anguish, as well asthe reason for it.