A wise man by the name of Winston Churchill once said that, "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." Ellen DeGeneres was also quoted saying how, "When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important.”
On the covers of magazines, in the headlines of news stories, on the tops of our graded tests, all the way to the gossip we hear from our friends, each day, we are surrounded by failure — even more so than success, I would argue. Our perception of the topic of failure has been deluded by the way society perceives it, and is in a desperate need of awakening its true meaning.
When you search the definition of the word "failure" it will tell you that it is "a lack of success." I found this to be quite hilarious, since just the other day my mentor asked me what success meant to me and I said failure. If I've learned anything since I've been in college, it's been exactly this: That in order to succeed, you must first fail. I've begun to take my failures and view them as keys, rather than locks. Because I believe that there is not just one key to success, but that there are doors upon doors waiting to be opened, and that each time you fail, you are unlocking one of those doors and becoming closer and closer to who it is that you were meant to be.
So many of us get caught up in criticism, always worrying about what others might think. I do this ridiculous thing where whenever I'm about to speak during a discussion, I have to plan out exactly what I'm going to say before I actually say it. I just gave a speech for my public speaking class and I literally practiced my speech in front of the mirror, morning, noon and night. I presented it before my friends and roommate and even called my mom to practice over the telephone.
Fear; always wondering "what if." These are the things that encompass our everyday lives and hold authority over a large amount of our decisions. Whether it's in regard to applying for a job or internship, studying abroad, going back to school, trying a new sport — we are fearful creatures who thirst for the acceptance of others without even realizing it.
What we need is a society that does not settle on the definition that has been given to it, but instead creates its own image of success and sculpts it into something greater...into something human. We cannot avoid failure, but what we can do is revolutionize its meaning through extraordinary thinking.
Growing up, my mom always told me and continues to tell my younger siblings that, "There is no such thing as a mistake," and that, "You can fix anything." As an artist and homemaker, she has learned the importance of this very valuable lesson by exhibiting success in its richest form. Think about some of the most successful people from our history and in our world today, like Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, J.K Rowling, Vera Wang, Oprah Winfrey, Jim Carrey, and even Bill Gates. All of these people have done praiseworthy things, originated by failure.
When we begin to look at our failure in light of possibility rather than doubt, we too can achieve miraculous things. I was listening to a motivational clip in one of my classes on how some of the best ideas lie within the cemeteries of our world, due to doubt and fear. So as you carry on about your day, whether in the workplace or on the bus ride home, as a student or as an adult — may you conceive your own interpretation of what it means to succeed and strive after your ambitions with both confidence and the preparedness to fail, remembering that great things emerge from strange ideas and that no idea ever thought to be great has ever been normal.
“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” --Denis Waitley
