August 21st

Question Of The Day

6. What can failure teach?

Failure has taught me that we always learn something from it. 

There was a Brazilian inventor  that wanted to fly airplanes. His 
first one crashed, not even rising 10 meters from the ground. His second one also failed. And so was his other thirty-eight tries. In his 41st try, he succeeded. I don't really remember what was the 41st plane's name, but it had the number 41 in it. 
The discoverer of the blood types who I don't remember the name also passed through a lot of failures. And expensive failures, even costing human lives. At that time, the vast majority of the patients who got transfusion of blood died before doctors could do anything. Then, the discoverer who has his name completely erased from my mind researched about it, and found out that certain blood types were not compatible with some others. Then, blood-transfused patient's mortality dramatically decreased. 

Failure can teach also teach that nobody is really perfect. When I was at Elementary School, I used to have perfect grades, being the second best grade in my class (the first place was always being disputed by two geniuses). And that also was my reality during the first years of middle school. But then, when I was at 7th grade, I was so convinced that I could take a test and get good grades without studying, that I did not study. In the day before the test, I pretended that I was studying and used my time to play games in the computer. Two weeks later, I received the results. I was devastated. There was I, in my spot in the classroom, staring at a 4.75 written in red pen in the right upper corner at the first page of the test (and I remember; it was a Science test in the second quarter of the year. My score was a 4.75 out of 10). By that, I learned that I wasn't the person that thought I was, and also that I am not perfect, therefore I must work for what I want. 

Sometimes (or always), failure can hit us without a single advice. It makes us feel small, crushed, haggard, and miserable. But there will always be a way out, like a maze.