英语阅读：David doesn’t do failure
Reader question: This is a line from the movie Frost/Nixon: “David doesn’tdo failure.” What does it mean exactly?
My comments: It means that David, David Frost that is, doesn’t accept
failure. Or he doesn’t allow failure to happen. He won’t stop trying until he
succeeds.
Or in David’s dictionary, you might say, there’s no entry for
“failure”.
Still in other words, failure is not an option for David. It won’t DO.
In real life, of course, David Frost was a British talk show host, and in
every conceivable sense, he’d be among the last people you’d imagine to have
pulled off the first exclusive interview with Richard Nixon, the one and only US
President to resign from office for wrongdoing, specifically due to what came to
be known as the Watergate scandal.
But succeed Frost did, spending every penny in his own pocket as well as
any money he could borrow. In the film, and during one of the few moments when
Frost appeared to be nearing emotional breakdown, he said to his partner: “Why
didn’t you stop me? Someone should’ve physically stopped me!”
Or something in similar vein, so you can imagine the pressure he put
himself under.
Anyways, here are more examples of the phrase “doesn’t do failure”, or
“excuses” and so forth:
1. Can men ever cope with women who are far more successful than them?
Everywhere now I see couples where the woman earns more than the man but where
the woman is still expected to shore up the masculine ego. This marriage was
almost a caricature of that. This nice middle-class boy had to get more macho by
the week - shooting, singing rebel songs, making gangster films - while his wife
continued her obsessive need for world domination. He thought he could handle
it. She thought she’d found a man tough enough to take it. But Madonna doesn’t
do failure. She has worked hard at having the perfect marriage. For once the
work has not paid off.
- A tough old bird? Well, too tough for you, Guy, DailyMail.co.uk, October
19, 2008.
2. He insists he was always good at keeping in touch with those he worked
closely with. But not very good at keeping on side with those he had to? “Yes,
yes, yes, I think that’s probably right.” There’s a long pause, as he struggles
with his words. “Difficult . . . the party became very divided in the 80s. They
had a view about who was ‘One of us’ as the phrase was, and I never was.” The
assassin sounds rather hurt. He must at times wish he hadn't stood against her.
“I don’t have any regrets,” he says. But it’s only human to have regrets. “I had
a wonderful time, huge privilege,” he chants. “I cast the dice, and I knew what
I was doing.” He equates regret with failure, and he doesn’t do failure.
- Interview: Michael Heseltine, The mane man, Guardian, April 2, 2001.
3. So that we get started on the right note, some straight talking and a
few personal goal settings ground rules. I don’t do problems I don’t do
failure I don’t do dreams I don’t do hope I don’t do desire I don’t do
wish Saying you have a health ‘problem’, is the same as saying the health
'problem' have you because you have made it a part of you. When you work with me
in setting and achieving a realistic goal or goals, you will learn that
‘Problems’ are simply health challenges, barriers or blocks, that, with a bit of
effort, you simply choose to walk around, jump over or break down. Nor do I do
‘failure’. You see telling yourself or allowing other people to tell you, you
have or will fail is sabotaging yourself before you’ve even begun. Think about
this for a moment. You are walking on a slippery surface. You tell yourself – ‘I
hope I don’t fall.’ What do you suppose happens? Yes, just as you tell yourself
that, you fall because you planted a little seed that would sprout ‘failure’ and
when it does, you further reinforced that ‘failure’ by telling yourself ‘I knew
that would happen’. ... Nor do I do ‘dreams’, ‘hope’, desire or ‘wish’. Sure you
can dream but dreams belong in your sleep and in your positive visualizations of
that round the world cruise you are going to reward yourself with upon
successful completion of your personal health goals. (That’s the one your
partner don’t know about yet). Wishes and dreams etc., have no place in your
clearly defined health goals.
- Personal Goal Setting Can Change Your Life Today!
Health-womens-healthy-living-goals.com.
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