In "Why it feels so good to read about this Princeton professor’s failures" (2016), we are told that Prof. Johannes Haushofer--a psychology professor from Princeton University--has revealed his own CV of failures as a result of the inspiration by the article of Prof. Melanie Stefan who presented the importance of the visible record of setbacks which help people cope with their failures. He believes that failure is as essential as success. “Most of what I try fails, but these failures are often invisible, while the successes are visible. I have noticed that this sometimes gives others the impression that most things work out for me. As a result, they are more likely to attribute their own failures to themselves, rather than the fact that the world is stochastic, applications are crapshoots, and selection committees and referees have bad days.” said Haushofer.
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My Yes/No question is:
Is embracing failures really important for one’s life?
My answer is:
Yes, but not for all of them
Let me explain this first. We all now are distorted by enormous information surrounding us, particular for social media. To stop using Facebook, Instagram and so on would be a easy tip to make you happier. Social media has become the distorted world where people are subjective to reveal and publicize online. I mean people are prone to tell about themselves in (very) positive ways by posting their achievements, good relationships, happy moments and the like, as opposed to telling their setbacks, bad events and terrible memories. This eventually enables us to compare ourselves with the others who post things positively, yet subjectively. It causes unhappiness due to the feeling that other people are better and more superior than us. So, embracing failures would as significant as accepting the fact that life is not as beautiful as it may seem.
Even so, do not label all of them as equally helpful. We have to define what the good, productive failures are and should be careful about them. This is because some of them are just wasteful ones, where they are the consequences of the very bad decision-making without thinking them through in advance. The merely productive ones should be lauded as the stepping-stone for success in one’s life.
Embracing them is so important, sometimes more important than success, because they are just options of our pathway to pursue our goals as valuable experiences. We might not be able to control the results of what we have done, but we can always perceive any situations or consequences creatively. We can learn from everything optimistically, in particular failures.Setbacks are not waste, but things where nothing else could have taught you. They can be the best teachers of our lives. At least, you can know what your limitation is and what is wrong with you. The failing will help you prevent from happening again if you embrace it knowingly. And unsurprisingly, it is also useful for other people to learn your failures.
What’s more, one of the main problem is that we do not want to get out of our comfort zone because we are scared of failure despite no effort and action. We never know it until we try. Even the greatest successful people always experience setbacks. Failures are inevitable. “If you’ve never failed, you’ve never tried anything new.” Albert Einstein said that. No taking risks is the most dangerous risk.
Finally, I am convinced that while we are hoping for the best, we should always realize and prepare for the worst as well. The most important thing is not what problem is and how serious it is, but is how we can learn and take advantage of them creatively and wisely from embracing as many productive failures as possible in order to turning crisis into an opportunity. Often, we must fail to gain something more valuable.
As Michael Jordan once said, “I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Are you still a stranger to your failures? ……….I am not anymore !!!
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Reference
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ReplyDeleteThe links below are the full published CV of failures of Prof. Johannes Haushofer and the article A CV of Failures in the journal Nature by Prof. Melanie Stefan, respectively.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.princeton.edu/~joha/Johannes_Haushofer_CV_of_Failures.pdf
http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2010/101118/pdf/nj7322-467a.pdf
I agree with your idea. I don't think all of them is important. They should learn from the mistakes but not get stuck with them.
ReplyDeleteFailure is as important as success. If you never fail, how could you become successful? I admit that there're somethings that we don't have to try, but we know they will bring us bad outcomes; commit a crime, dope drug, or even cheat in the exams. But we can get through things in our life by learning from our own mistakes. Once we do it wrong, we,then, realize and learn from those mistakes. So next time we generally avoid making the same mistakes we did.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, don't stuck with those bad memories too much. They are useful only you use them as a guide, then you have to put them aside ,so that you can move on.
Success is a journey, not a destination. Hence, don't be afraid of making mistakes!
At first I think that failure is as essential as success, but you have change my mind. Not all of the failures are important because only some, which are the stepping-stone, are. The others that are wasteful shouldn't be labeled as essential and shouldn't happen at the first place. However, if it had happened, you shouldn't blame yourself over and over and try to learn and move on.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your very good and thoughtful blog!
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with you and others comments.
There is one point you mention that embracing failure sometimes more important then success. I agree. I think failure will sharpen our character which are humbleness, carefulness and understanding. And these things are hard to learn from our success. Failure helps us understand the value of success and gain in our maturity.
Thank you for your very good and thoughtful blog!
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with you and others comments.
There is one point you mention that embracing failure sometimes more important then success. I agree. I think failure will sharpen our character which are humbleness, carefulness and understanding. And these things are hard to learn from our success. Failure helps us understand the value of success and gain in our maturity.
Yes, I think that failure is an ingredient of success. However, it better to think in positive way while you're failure and try harder to make it success.
ReplyDeleteNo one can do anything success at the first time. That's why, I do always think positive when I fail with something.
I agree that failure is a part of success. However, I think some might succeed in their first time doing something but there is just a few of them. However, it is better to use failure as a motivation to be successful.
DeleteI agree, many people want to forget or hide their failures including me. However, I use them to cheer up or motivate my friends who are in the same situation with me. And I find it really work, like if I can pass it and why you can't.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that sometimes embracing failures is more important than success. Most people choose to ignore their failures and they only look forward to their success because success is something that they desire. And they may think that failure is a shame. But I think that failure is an important key to make people become successful. If you can accept or embrace their failures, they can give and teach you a lot. For example, when you think about your failure, you will realize about mistakes that you have done and you will be reminded not to do these mistakes again and this will leads you to success.
ReplyDeleteYour blog post makes me recall when I was the staff in cheer activity in high school. I remember that the first cheer practice happened after lunch, my leader trusted me and he told me that I was clever and active, so he trusted me to manage all of English-program students (about 100 people). At first, I thought that it was quite easy to do that as I used to notice senior staffs' working when I studied in junior high school. In contrast, when I managed my work, I did many things wrong. Certainly, in the evening, I was blamed and I felt very sad because many of my mates trusted me that I could do it well. Fortunately, I braced my failure and looked forward to managing cheer activity again to solve problems I did at the first time. And then, the second time, I knew what my problem are. Therefore, I could solve many problems and I felt happy after finishing cheer practice.
ReplyDeleteSurely, bracing failure is very hard for some people including me too. Nonetheless, I have to defeat it and if I can beat it, I will be developed by many tough problems and get lots of experience I can't buy form anywhere.