If You Don’t Fail Sometimes, You Fail at Life

I was watching The Amazing Race Asia with Jon, and one of the contestants claimed, “I’ve never failed at anything.”

Someone needs to tell that poor misguided girl that failure isn’t always a bad thing. True, failure to brake when driving behind a slowing police car is a bad idea. Failure to notice that medicine is only meant to be taken externally? Also not good. But in general, failure is a good way to learn.

I fail at things all the time. When I fail to communicate with someone effectively, I learn something about their communication style. When I fail to listen carefully, I find out why certain chemicals should not be poured into the same container. Just this morning, I failed to put on clothes that were not pajamas. I frequently fail to understand the reasoning behind our government’s decisions.

You only really fail when your failure doesn’t teach you anything and you repeat it. As painful as failure can be (especially when it’s a public failure), your original action is much less important than your reaction.

As to the old adage, you only fail when you don’t try, it’s only partially true. Don’t give up before you start, but realize not everything is a good idea. For example, if you are considering doing something absolutely stupid (like performing dentistry on a live shark), then it’s okay not to try – the failure here is 1) you didn’t quite think this one through and 2) you didn’t make good enough friends in kindergarten, because if you had, one of them would stop you.

Finally, if you’re truly serious about attempting to take over the world, you have to be prepared for some failures. Russia’s a tough nut to crack, and next Tuesday will be my third or fourth attempt. But do I sit down and cry? Well, maybe. But then I LEARN from my mistakes and adjust my strategy. For example, we certainly won’t be using mountain elks this time. Lazy )#$*#@)ing elks.

What fun things have you failed at lately?