Failure: not a four letter word

Today I would like to discuss the “F” word. This little, four letter word, has become so feared in our society that parents hope their children never hear it. The government is leading a crusade against this word. And children, nation-wide may be stunted from never hearing this word.

The word is “Fail”. Nobody likes to hear that they failed in something. And your parents definitely are never pleased to hear you failed Calculus. But there is a lot that you can learn from it.

When you are told you are failing at something, it is meant to be a wake-up call that you need to try, whatever it may be, a different way. In essence, being notified of failure is meant to help you succeed. It’s much like discipline in that it’s painful when it happens to you, but is intended to make you better in the future.

Unfortunately, our society is afraid of failure. The Oakland Tribune reports that some elementary schools are leaving grading systems altogether. Some of the reasons for this are that the teachers and administrators don’t want to make the children feel bad. They don’t realize that leaving the grading system altogether ends up harming children more, because they falsely assume they are doing well academically.

I wish I could say that this failure-phobic attitude was only prevalent for young children, but it’s not. In fact, at the highest levels of our government, our elected leaders are working their tails off to make sure that companies across the nation don’t feel their failures. Look at the American automobile industry, which dug its own grave through sub-par production and complete mismanagement. Our elected officials have already given them about $15 billion and are considering giving them more.

Your tax dollars are hard at work subsidizing failure. And it’s not just in the automobile industry, but also in the financial industry. Last year the U.S. Federal Government handed out $700 billion to financial institutions in a disgusting abuse of wealth redistribution, or as I see it, legal plunder.

The government should let these companies fail. Schools should let children fail. There is a lot to be learned from failure. The children that fail will repeat the grade or the course, and hopefully they will learn the material the second time around. If they still don’t, then I pray they learn it the third time around. If a company fails they can declare bankruptcy, restructure and try again. If they still fail then they will probably get out of the business with what they have left and try again in a different business but with the knowledge they gained from their past failure.

The great thing about failure is that no matter who you are or what you’re doing, there are always second chances. There’s always redemption.

Thomas Edison created over 10,000 versions of the light bulb before one actually worked. Sometimes it takes many, many failures to succeed. Thomas Edison has shown that success will come through hard work, perseverance and many tries.

Michael Jordan, in a Nike commercial says, “I have missed more than 9,000, lost more than 300 games and 26 times I have been asked to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” Jordan shows that failure isn’t a destination but rather an initial step toward success.

Failure is one of life’s many teaching instruments, and one that everyone (including the government) should recognize as essential for success to take place.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 27 2009. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry