English Language Support during exams week

Wishing you good luck with your exams.   We are still here to support you.

English Language Support for week 14

Failure and success.

Michael Jordan "Failure" Nike Commercial

What do Steve Jobs,   Winston Churchill,   Mahatma Gandhi,  Thomas Edison, Michael Jordan,  and Marie Curie have in common?   They were failures who became successful.  And around the world there are many more like them.  For some,  failure defined most of their lives, but it did not destroy them.   They learned from and overcame this failure, never giving up.    So can you.   You should welcome failure, not fear it.

There are three questions everyone should think seriously about.

1. What is failure?   
2. What is success?  
3. What is your attitude towards failure?

Have you ever really thought about this?   It may seem trite to discuss this topic.  Everybody knows this stuff.     But then if this is so,  why are so few able to manage it well?    Different cultures view failure differently.    It may be shameful,  a loss of face.   Failure may be punished.    Or it may be valued.

One of the greatest virtues of America is that it celebrates failure.   One of its greatest presidents Abraham Lincoln lost 8 elections plus faced numerous other failures before being elected as president and achieving tremendous success in a short time before being killed.   In business,  bankruptcy is not viewed as the end of one's business career, but an opportunity,  which is why it is called 'reorganization'.   Just think of Steve Jobs and Apple if you want to gain the American perspective on failure and success.   I think it is a healthy perspective, but not necessarily easy.

For many students,  their first experience of failure in life  often occurs at university,  being it failing an assignment,  a  test,  or a course.    It can be most shocking.   It hurts.    But it needn't be the end. It shouldn't be shameful.      And hopefully it isn't repeated.   You find out the cause and address it. Sometimes the reason for the failure is a poor fit -- you are in the sciences, but are not good at math and not really interested in the field.   The way to success is to change majors.    Sometimes failure is a message to us that we do not have a particular ability or interest (and probably never will have). Other times it may reveal a missing knowledge or skill that we can obtain or improve.   Our habits or lifestyle might also be the cause, and can be adjusted.     It may simply be that the academic life is not for you,  at least at this time.   The key is to examine the failure to see what caused it, and deal with this in both macro and micro ways.

It has been said that we only learn from suffering,  that happiness teaches us nothing.   So it is with failure.   We can learn from it.       It teaches us humility.   It teaches us to look inward.  It teaches us compassion for others who fail.   It teaches us the way to success.

Famous Failures