The Price of Sour Grapes
Why Avoiding Regret Is Costing Me My Story
Let me tell you about a defense mechanism I have that I am too ashamed of.
“Sour Grapes Philosophy.”
It’s based on the classic children’s story about a fox who couldn’t reach the grapes on the grapevine and had then announced it to be “sour.” Like the fox, I like to think of some failures as sour grapes. These failures and situations have one thing in common: I wasn’t fully in control. They were pre-existing issues that I could not change and no matter how much effort I put in, the vines would not budge. I walk away saying that I didn’t really want/need/like them anyway.
Sour grapes philosophy is a great way to not deal with regret. If I can convince myself that the flaw in the situation is so big that nothing good about it can salvage it then maybe walking away from it and giving up will not hurt so much. If they are sour then the butterflies in my stomach don’t exist.
I realised very recently that this defence has run so deep into my life that I can’t even bring myself to write about the good times. I don’t let myself think about the time when the situation made me happy and I certainly can’t write a story about them. A close friend of mine was reading an article I had written and he said it was “sad.” He called a story about my travel, “intense and sad,” and then asked why I hadn’t written about my bus journeys that, at the time, I couldn’t stop gushing about. “You loved the trip and had some great conversations, why don’t you write about that?”
That was a great part of my trip and it was also a great learning experience so why have I not been able to pen those times down? For a person who hates long journeys, I survived that one with a smile. Is writing about pure glee harder than disappointment?
I found a great website and pitched a story about the abovementioned fascinating, surprising and joyful bus journey. The website loved it and said they would like to read a draft. The blank Word doc stared at me as I relived those 8 hours and I was not able to type a single word. Have I sullied all my memories because of a bad ending? Did the journey mean nothing because the destination lost all its charm? The grapes were sour but they were also a beautiful sight to behold. I can walk away but does that mean that with all the butterflies, the memories have to leave to?
I used to pride myself on using the “sour grapes” to check back in with reality, but I don’t want to forget to forgive. What is the balance between sour grapes and acceptance?