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Failure. Whenever people hear this word, cold chills start running down their spines and the very thought of failure paralyses and cripples them. In society, we have been taught and conditioned to believe that only winners should be celebrated and losers should be ridiculed, mocked, ostracised and looked down upon. We have been taught that winning and succeeding are the only paths to having a good life while losing and failing means that your entire life is doomed. However, let us all take a step back to ponder whether failure and failing is a good or bad thing.
Now if we look at Thomas Edison, one of the greatest inventors in history, he looked at failure through a different lens. Instead of seeing failure as something bad, he saw it as 10000 ways that did not work. As a child, his teachers told his mother that he was “too stupid to learn anything”. It took him 9999 attempts at not succeeding before ultimately succeeding during the 10000th attempt at refining the light bulb.
Apart from Thomas Edison, Michael Jordan, one of the greatest NBA players has also claims that he lost almost 300 games, missed over 9000 shots and missed the winning shot 26 times when he was given the ball. However, he used failure as a tool to motivate himself to succeed. To him, failure was a stepping stone to success.
If we look at what these two men have in common, we can see that they viewed failure differently from the way most people view failure. Edison and Jordan did not see failure as something that is disgraceful or something that results in the end of their respective careers. Instead, they saw failure as an opportunity to learn, grow, evolve and become better at their crafts. They believed that you will ultimately succeed as long as you do not give up.
Think about the amount of times you have failed in life be it studying for an exam, playing a sport, learning new language, taking part in a competition or trying something new in life. Every single one of us has failed at some point in life. Personally, I have failed in each and every one of the endeavour mentioned above and I still continue to fail until today when I try new things. There was a time in life where I felt afraid of failing but I reminded myself of the number of times I failed and picked myself up each time I failed. As a kid, I suffered from dyslexia which gave me issues with reading, writing, and speaking the English language. The intricate and complex grammar of the English language was difficult for my underdeveloped brain to comprehend. As a Malaysian, I even had issues mastering the national language of my country- the Malay language. Learning Mandarin Chinese was extremely difficult for me as well as an ethnic Chinese Malaysian. However, I did not give up and by persevering, I am able to speak four languages today which are English, Mandarin Chinese, Hokkien Chinese and the Malay language. When I first started playing soccer which is called football in my country, the ball flew backward instead of flying forward after kicking it. My classmates were all laughing at me but I practiced kicking the ball until I was able to kick it forward. These are some of the few life experiences I have gone through in my life among others. I do not aim to toot my own horn by sharing these life experiences of mine but I just hope to be able to inspire others in life and let them realise that they are not alone in their journey as there are others who have gone through or are going through the same experiences in life as well.
I also believe that we should aim to fail more in life to overcome the fear of failure by trying new things all the time be it learning a new language, playing a new sport or cooking a new dish. Do not be too worried about being perfect during the first try as no one does everything perfectly during their first try in life. A person who has never failed has never tried anything new. The most important thing is to give it your all in life. Fail often and hard by trying out new things so that when you are required to attempt a task in which you are not supposed to fail, you will be able to develop a mindset that allows you to go all out and not be afraid of failing or losing. The person in life who has nothing to lose is more likely to succeed than the person who has everything to lose and constantly worries about failure and success. Keep in mind that if you have failed too many times but something happens to you and you end up dying before you can try again, this clearly shows that you are a success in life because you never gave up in the first place. By doing this, you will be able to inspire others to not give up as well.
Below are other great quotes about failure from some of the greatest figures in history.
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