Everyone knows the feeling of failure. Everyone has felt the pressure of feeling like nothing is going right in their lives. Everyone has had that moment where they stop and think, “I can’t win.” Unfortunately, not everything in life goes as smoothly as we wish it would. It seems like sometimes we try our best, and get nothing in return. Failure hurts, and it can severely ruin a person’s self-esteem. Throughout my two years of living, I have learned a very important lesson from life itself: failure isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes in the moment, it seems like the worst thing ever, but it is something you can learn from and change.

So many amazing people in history failed before they discovered greatness. According to Business Insider, Colonel Harland David Sanders was fired from over 12 jobs before founding the thriving fast food restaurant we now know as KFC. Thomas Edison went through school being told he was “unteachable” and “too stupid to learn.” J. K. Rowling was living off welfare when she wrote her first “Harry Potter” book. These are just a few of many amazing people who failed before they became the amazing humans they are. It’s people like them we should try learning from.

Life is about experiences, and processing every failure and figuring out a way to make it positive, is the key to reaching greatness. Sometimes we take life too seriously, and forget that happiness should be everyone’s main goal. So instead of dwelling on everything we did wrong, we should move on, forget about it, and conquer the next task ahead of us. As a young adult, learning that every small defeat isn’t the end of the world was a huge revelation for me. The thought alone made struggling through college that much easier. So next time you get a bad grade, or make a mistake, just remember that it isn’t the end of the world. You can turn any failure into a learning experience, and most importantly: don’t sweat the small stuff.