Failure is Important and Essential

While road to success is often a toilsome one, failure is bound to happen. Though failure is looked down upon, causes emotional turmoil and inflicts agonising pain, it is considered an inevitable part of learning. You should not feel dejected and learn to take failure in your stride. It is rightly said that failure is a stepping stone to success. You cannot enjoy success without having tasted the fruits of adversity.

Sure, you all have heard the same saying “learn from your mistakes”, but how much does it stands true? The moment you start going to school, you are not supposed to fail. From a young age, you are taught failing is bad and something to dread. Moreover, neither is defeat ever considered a reward nor is failure documented in history books. Despite that, what is fascinating is, that behind every successful man is a saga of failure.

There are innumerable examples that are a testimony to the fact that in order to achieve success, it is imperative to experience failure, which helps you push your boundaries in a new way. From J.K. Rowling to Ratan Tata, everyone who has been in trenches, survived all battles and came out stronger and successful. Failure could neither deter their spirits nor their will to succeed. With each step backwards, they did not falter simply for lack of courage and instead learned to look at the brighter side of it.

Bill Gates, founder of the world’s largest software business, not only dropped out of Harvard University, but was a co-owner of a business that failed, his company ran losses and it had to be closed. But this failure did not stop him and his passion for computer programming made him the world’s youngest self-made billionaire with the launch of Microsoft. J.K. Rowling, on the other hand, wrote Harry Potter when she was struggling with divorce, was a single mother and living on welfare. Her first manuscript was rejected a dozen times before it became the best seller in the history of fiction. The rejection did not stop her and she wrote seven books in the series, gaining worldwide fame. Narayan Murthy, our very own Indian software genius, started Infosys with the money that he borrowed from his wife. The company ran losses and was on the verge of collapse in its initial years, but Murthy did not give up and rest is history.

Fundamentally, though people tend to avoid, failure plays an important part in the journey to success. It sparks new beginnings and opens a world of new opportunities. The fear of failure should not hold you back. Even the greatest business men, scientists, entrepreneurs or public figures have failed once in their lifetime. There is hardly anyone who hasn’t failed an exam, lost a job or seen their dream completely shatter. You are not the only person on the planet to nose dive. Everyone has their own share of failures mounting to difficult times. What is essential is, to find resilience to grapple with it, learn what it has to teach and then move on. Consider every mistake, every failure as a learning opportunity that is necessary for growth.

Having said that, it cannot be denied that our education system is heavily influenced by grades and judges a student’s ability on how many marks he/she has scored. In this competitive era, scores have become a decisive factor in a student’s academic life. A “F” on the report card is a mark of shame and ignominy for students as well as their parents. It not only labels a child as “failure” and “good for nothing” but he/she is also mocked and disrespected by friends and peers. This not only demotivates them but they also lose all confidence in their abilities. In such a scenario, failure should be employed as a learning tool by teachers and parents that would teach them how a certain approach is not ideal for a specific situation and there could be better ways to approach the same. Teachers should especially come forward and create atmosphere, where making mistakes is acceptable and where other students encourage and support their classmates and not belittle them.

Teachers and parents should offer help and motivate students to try again. Students, on the other hand, should learn to embrace and incorporate failure that would make their learning effective and prepare them to face the challenges that life might throw at them in the future.

To conclude, failure is definitely a great teacher and plays an important role in the trajectory of students throughout their life. It imparts you with knowledge and develops a better understanding of your strengths and weaknesses and how you can overcome them.