Throughout school, we are conditioned to process failure as a word that’s hard to swallow. Our parents lectured us on their disappointment and our teachers made us feel that much more inferior to them. The profuse red ink on an exam was akin to a crime scene in our youthful eyes; all of our hard work murdered by the splatter of the crimson marks. But what we never considered was that failure is a necessary poison for success; like a success story’s rite of passage.
Failing is brave. It means you marched along a different path, even when the threat of defeat sang confidently in your ears. To venture into unchartered territory can be an enticing adventure, but it can also destabilize you. For many, this instability signifies incompetency. But what if we changed our perception on that? What if we welcomed that bump in the road instead of simply running from it?
What you learn from that instability can catapult you into success. There’s a reason automobile engineers test-drive cars before sending them out to the showrooms. What they learn in a test-drive can uncover flaws in their design and the easy route would be walking away from the car and owing the hurtle to their failed abilities. Because, to fail once is a punch in the stomach, but to fail twice is a dagger to your heart. It’s embarrassing. It’s frustrating. But it is a necessary evil.
While the engineers work out the kinks of their design, they may uncover a new innovation they hadn’t initially thought of. The failure of the first design can ultimately guide them toward the discovery of a new breakthrough. Without those hiccups, it’s unlikely our automobile technology would be where it is today.
If we feared failure, we would fear success too. Failure is the bully that stole your lunch money everyday. Until it wasn’t—until it was the ladder that lifted you to your potential, the black light that uncovered an inner strength within you that you never knew existed. If it hadn’t been for that bully—that failure—you may have never discovered the assertive force inside of you.
Imagine if Walt Disney packed his bags on his dreams when the editor of Kansas City Star told him he lacked imagination. Yes, you read that correctly. THE Walt Disney. The mastermind behind one of the biggest empires we have ever seen. The man who is responsible for the corporation that has far outlived his years. Our childhoods would have been robbed of the magic he created had he ran away in the face of that failure.
Many are quick to succumb to the anxiety of not succeeding and coast by in comfort; never reaching too far for fear their efforts may not add up to a favorable outcome. But for those who drink failure for breakfast, we are fueled by that bitter taste. We fight nobly in the face of defeat and unearth cutting-edge, creative, and paramount discoveries within our goals and ourselves. We squash the failure that once teased us and search for our next failure. Because we know very well that within it lives our next success.
