I failed my first test ever during my first year of my undergraduate degree. I was devastated. How did this happen? I was not the kind of person that failed tests. I thought it was the end of the world. But, of course, it wasn’t. Little did my 18-year-old self know that it was the beginning of a long line of spectacular failures. I have failed as a parent, a teacher, a counsellor, a spouse, a sister, and a daughter. For every success, there have been failures - big and small - along the way.
Why doesn’t that bother me anymore? That’s simple - because we all fail from time to time. There is no one who is immune to failure. Forbes.com tells us that many of the things we take for granted wouldn’t exist if their inventors hadn’t failed and then tried again...and then again. Things like WD-40, bubble wrap, pacemakers, Nintendo, iPods, Dyson vacuums and even Wheaties. We learn more from failure than we do from success. As a civilization, and as individuals, we move improve when we don’t get it right. We fail forward.
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
― Winston S. Churchill
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