The fringe lacy benefits of failure

What is a failure? It gives us a signal that very soon success is going to knock our doorsteps. With success, we get carried away, but, with failure, we can sit down, think and rethink about what had happened. As Roger Von Oech quotes “There are two benefits of failure, first if you do fail you learn what does not work and second the failure gives you an opportunity to try a new approach”. 

Is there any secret formula for success? Hypothetically we can come up with various types of formulas like hard work, dedication, preparation, etc. but nobody can predict success. The standard thought is that success brings happiness and failure brings sadness. This sadness disheartens people, and there are people who have taken extreme steps like committing suicide, have heart ailments, etc. but if at all they had heard what Winston Churchill had quoted “The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, but the optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” they would have taken life in a positive, happy way. In every difficulty and failure, there is an opportunity and light. Here comes one of our secret formulas, grab the light and move forward.

There are certain things about failure that we should know which would make us a better person. They are:

1. Lesson to be learned from every failure: The best teacher after the experience is the failure. Our failure is telling us something that success would not have taught us. The success brings in head-weightedness in us whereas failure makes us humble. The modesty in us to accept and evaluate the failure makes us better people. Once we realize where we went wrong, we will not make the mistake again.

2. Failure inspires us: When a child fails in class, will he/she show it openly to everybody with pride. NO, he/she would want to hide it. It is not only to a child but, even for elders, they would want to cover it up as it affects their ego. Instead get inspired from the failure and try to succeed overcoming the guilt feeling that we have failed.

3. Gives us an alternative solution: Thomas A. Edison quotes about failure. He says,“I have not failed, but I have found 10,000 ways that won't work”. It means he has found 10,000 alternatives of failure but the 10,001st alternative might click, and he might embrace success.

4. Makes us aware of our pros and cons: We can study ourselves and understand our weak points only after a failure. Then we need to work on it and eradicate it so as to be a winner.

I would like to brief a short story about a boy who wanted to ring a bell that was tied near the beach. He tried and tried, but could not get the bell. But he did not lose heart. He sincerely tried every day. Days, months and years rolled by and finally one day he could ring the bell.

Do you know why? That is because he had grown tall. It's not that he had grown tall physically, but mentally, he had grown strong too. Every day he learned a lesson in the ways in which he tried hitting the bell, the tactics he used and more than all his belief in himself that one day he would achieve his target. His mental strength gave energy to him physically, and he could succeed.

To conclude, teachers and parents can share their failures with the younger generation so that, that would guide them in achieving their goals comparatively in a better way. After all, we are talking about the fringe lacy benefits of the failure, that itself shows that it is not a negative issue and with utmost sincerity, hard work, and dedication all the failures can be hit bulls-eye, and one comes up victorious with a big bang. After all the stepping stones of failure is the success.