Thomas Edison’s statement, “I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work,” is something to live by. Despite how our education system tries to misrepresent what failure really means, it is truly a natural part of the learning process. The “trial and error” method is the basis of critical thinking and complex problem solving, making people work through the wrong ways to accomplish something before figuring out the correct way. Failing is simply an opportunity for you to build upon yourself so that you can succeed.
From failing tests to failing to get the internship you wanted, there are tons of things for college students to fail at, and it stresses us out more than it should. If you fail a class, your parents probably won’t be happy with you, but really it’s an opportunity to correct some things in your education plan. By reviewing the semester and figuring out what made you fail the course, you can really help yourself down the road whether it’s fixing poor study habits or changing out of a major that may be too difficult. Failing isn’t an indicator to stop what you’re doing, it’s a chance to figure out what you did wrong so that you can fix it to better yourself.
Just like the philosophical argument that there is no good without evil, there is no success without failure. It’s next to impossible to find a success story that didn’t start with failure. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Walt Disney went bankrupt multiple times before finding his recipe for success. Henry Ford worked tirelessly on his “horseless carriage,” went through multiple different companies and declared bankruptcy five times before founding Ford Motor Company. Winston Churchill failed in his political role in World War 1 as the First Lord of Admiralty, causing him to be stripped of his powers and enlist to go to the front lines before coming back and moving forward with his political career. If these people hadn’t had the willpower to move past their failures, they would’ve remained unknown and the world today could have been very different. Failure didn’t make them stop short of achieving their goals, it helped them move forward and go down in history.
An Edison-like perspective on failure is something to strive for because of how it sets you up for success. Evaluate your errors, make adjustments, and make a decision to try again or take your experience and move on. You truly learn more from your failures in life than you do from your successes, so let your mistakes be the stepping stones to achieving your goals.
