Failed

A man's life is interesting primarily when he has failed- ...For it's a sign that he tried to surpass himself.
Georges Clemenceau

Probably not many of us would like to be remembered for all the times we failed in life. We think failure is an embarrassment, something to hide from the world. We don't want to admit we made a mistake, that we are less than perfect. We are taught from a very young age that making a mistake isn't acceptable and failure is even worse. No child ever wanted to show his parents a failure on his exam or especially on his report card.

But the truth is that if we never fail, it means we never try. Very few people ever do anything just right the first time. We call it beginner's luck and even those who are familiar with the task wish it would happen to them. In real life, when we try to do something that we are not familiar with, we can expect to make mistakes, and even fail. That's the way things happen. That's how we learn. But, of course, just because we failed this time doesn't mean we should quit.

When we fail, it means that we tried to do something that was difficult for us. We tried to surpass ourselves, to do something that we had never done before. We were engaged with life, trying to better ourselves. Success, of course, is wonderful when it comes. But it is the trying, the risking failure, the getting started and taking action, that is really important. It is the journey to success that is the interesting part of our life. And those times that we fail are the signposts along the way, that show the direction we are taking to improve ourselves.