Failure is never an option.
November 30, 2008 - 11:10pm
Why is failure never an option?
This statement is always used in a negative context yet the rewards of failure can lead to positive results. Failure allows for growth, it confirms that your knowledge and skills are not always correct and failure provides guidance to areas in which to improve.
At times where I have failed, I have always improved in the long term. I think failure makes a person more humble.
Does anyone have any thoughts, statements or experiences to share?
It's a power trip used by those with power to control others.
Interesting response, in the context.
Northern Report
I would agree. Is there a difference when failure is on a personal level compared to an organization level?
I was thinking in particular of educational settings when I responded howerver I don't believe it is necessarily that healthy for one to beat up on oneself, by labeling oneself a failure. Why not just say to yourself this is a steep learning curve or something to that effect. Most people are way too harsh on themselves, and yes there are always exceptions to that, as I did say most, as opposed to all.
Ensign Arthur Wellesley watched Coburg's disasterous campaign in Flanders in 1793, and learned how not to conduct a military campaign.
I tend to look at almost everything as an experiment. It's rare that there is not new knowlege available from failure.
It's rare that there is not new knowlege available from failure.
I think life would be very disappointing if there was no new knowledge received by failure.
In fact, today a project of mine failed at a critical juncture and time however I gained a lot of new knowledge by this mistake.
The works of sceptics can be a big help in learning how to learn from mistakes. Paramount in all those might perhaps be "Demon Haunted World" by Carl Sagan. Stephen J. Gould's "Missmeasure of Man" might be another, though it's not a book I'd start with. Charles MacKay's "Extraordinary Popular Deluisions and the Madness of Crowds" published in 1841, is amazing in that it is still timely today.
There's also short articles in a magazine called "Skeptical Inquirer" that point the way. I may not read those articles because I want to see Bigfoot foot prints debunked again, or many of the mundane hoaxes exposed, but I read them anyway to learn the processes. Many of the techniques illustrated there are translatable to any problem solving endeavor.
That's enough prostyletizing from me for one evening.