If I Never Fail, I Never Learn
When I think about the times that I changed and grew the most, it’s when I screwed up. I don’t recommend making mistakes for fun or being irresponsible, but trying to perfect is exhausting.
In American education, students are rewarded for complying with rules, learning to recite/remember facts and for success. I can’t think of any experience I had in school, where someone said, “Good job, you messed up!”
What real life teaches us, painfully in my case, that failure is part of the journey, it’s part of learning, it’s inherent in being human. Embracing failure as part of any given day or experience… has served me better than much of what seemed so important in school.
Make New Mistakes as Often as Possible.
As Billy Joel tells us in his song, Second Wind:
You better believe there will be times in your life
When you’ll be feeling like a stumbling fool
So take it from me you’ll learn more from your accidents
Than anything that you could ever learn at school
I’ve gotten a second wind hundreds of times. I hope you do too.
Image credit: boldomatic
What do you think?