The Necessity of Failure

I have read countless stories of success. From famous artists to academics and Nobel prize winners, I have always been inspired, hearing about how these people persevered, worked hard, and inevitably became successful in their respective fields.

Sometimes I daydream too about success and making a difference in the world. The dream of every idealistic youth. I am more of a seeker than a dreamer, but along the way I find myself passionately pursuing a cause, because I derive meaning from it that I cannot comprehend fully myself. This is the only path I know. My heart chose to see what my mind sometimes doesn't understand completely. I am an old soul and I chose to accept my destiny.

Learning that one should stand up after a fall is easier memorized than done. Only when I came face to face with it that I now understand why it is important to fail.

Failure is the real key to success. The devastating, crushing, and disappointing emotional struggle that failure brings breaks seeds. Take a catterpillar trapped in its pupa, patient and strong, until finally a butterfly unfolds. Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours theory is not complete without a string of failures. It took Edison hundreds of bulbs before he can produce the right one that changed the world. Steve Jobs got booted out of his own company when he was staring out. And then there's the Alchemist. The story of success is actually about taking the right attitude about failure. No white without black, no happiness without sadness, no gain without pain, no sweetness without sorrow.

I was thinking about failure again the other day when a friend told me: "Be happy. It means you're being pointed in the right direction. If you are being opposed, it means you are being pushed towards a purpose."

Sometimes I chuckle at God's secret, mysterious ways.