Failure. It’s a natural and inevitable part of our lives, yet for some reason we associate the experiences involving failure rather negatively. As a matter of fact, society seems to frown upon failure and mistake-making as a whole. Shame. Regret. Anger. All things we have been conditioned to feel whenever we fail at something. But why? In most cases, when we try something new and fail, the only real damage done is to our own ego and even then it’s completely temporary. I would even venture to say that this isn’t damaging at all and, instead, is actually beneficial.
I’m sure you’re familiar with the story of Thomas Edison, the inventor of the modern light bulb. Trite? Yes. Cliché? Certainly. As many times as you’ve probably heard or read about his story, the lessons we can learn from it are invaluable and still applicable today. Edison failed upwards of 10,000 times in his attempt to create a viable light-source contained within a single apparatus. During this time, he remained unwavering in his efforts despite the many frustrations he likely faced. It is very possible that most people would have given up after only a few attempts, deeming the task impossible. Fortunately, he wasn’t like most people. He took each failure as a learning opportunity by means of a simple shift in perspective. Only then was he able to eventually find success.
“I HAVE NOT FAILED. I’VE JUST FOUND 10,000 WAYS THAT WON’T WORK”
Success without failure is an overrated and unrealistic idea. What have we to gain from an experience that results in nothing other than satisfaction? That’s the beauty of making mistakes. We learn from them, then we succeed. Ultimately, we are left not only with the gratification of success (when we finally do succeed), but also with the knowledge we need to better ourselves moving forward. But failure doesn’t provide your everyday, average learning experience. It’s unique, powerful, and impactful. Failure provides a shock to our system. A wake-up call of sorts. It lets us know that what we’ve been doing doesn’t work, and that we should try something different altogether. Much like Edison, we discover what not to do. And, sometimes, that can make all the difference.
This is why it’s so unfortunate that society shuns failure to the extent that it does. Everyone wants to succeed. Everyone wants to be better than someone else. Everyone wants to be a perfectionist. Nobody wants to fail. It’s almost as if we’ve been peer-pressured into becoming failure-adverse robots. If we continue down this path as a collective society, nothing good will result. Mind you, the only reason SPILT MILK exists is because of failure. Many mistakes were made before we even had an inkling that we would find success. Without failure, there wouldn’t be innovation. Without failure, there wouldn’t be improvement. Without failure, there wouldn’t be success. Let’s put the ideal of success on hold and embrace failure for what it’s really worth. With that said, I encourage you to get out there and fail harder than you ever have before; you’ll be surprised to find what you’re capable of.
By Noah Jacobs, Creator of SPILT MILK