Failure

Countless number of lives have been ruined because of the fear of failure; majority of potential world changers have deprived themselves of their glorious destinies. The fear of failure should not stop us from daring. As Theodore Roosevelt remarked, “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” It is far better to fail gallantly while pursuing a noble cause than not to attempt.

Nobody wants to embark on a mission only to fail at the end; it sure hurts to fail. But sometimes, failure is inevitable if we must grow. If you don’t risk trying, you lose all the probability of winning. If you dare to try, you cannot fail totally. And even if you do fail, as you sometimes will, you would have learnt some valuable lessons that will prevent you from failing in the future, and besides without disappointments, you can’t really appreciate victory. Don’t give-in to any situation. There are always lessons to learn from failure(s). As Henry Ford put it, “Failure is an opportunity to a more intelligently begin again”. When you fail, you should learn from your mistakes, improve on the concept and then try again.

Truth be told, if it’s not done right, it will definitely result in failure. It is often said that Thomas Edison failed a thousand and one times in trying to invent the electric bulb, yet he persisted till he got it right. When asked how it felt to fail a thousand and one times before getting it right, it was told that Thomas Edison said that he never failed, but that he only learnt a thousand and one ways in which it simply could not work. Thomas Edison was indomitable and that was why he was able to have several patents to his name.

You may not win every battle, but you shouldn’t raise the white flag without putting up a fight. Even if you fail, try again. You might not be able to decide the outcome of your efforts, but you sure can decide how you react to it; you can either learn from it and progress or you give-in to it and retrogress. The choice is yours; your future is in your hands.