Saturday, October 30, 2010
The power of failure.
This week Professor Dolson asked us to write about failure and what that means to us in terms of personal growth. I have been quite busy this week so I only just got around to writing about the subject, but I think its an important one because people have lots of contrasting ideas about it. Some people are under the impression that failure, or making mistakes, is a prerequisite of success. Without it, how can we learn and grow into successful people? Others advocate the notion that failure is not necessary; that is, a person who has always been successful will continue to do so without ever making serious mistakes or ever truly understanding how to fail and how to learn from it. Personally, I believe that it is impossible to go through life without committing a mistake or not failing at something. I've had my share of failures and mistakes, be it academic or personal, and I continue to learn from them and grow as a person every day. This same notion applies to writing, as getting a bad grade on a paper is not the end of the world. When we understand what we do wrong and learn to correct it, we get the most benefit from failing. That way, we won't do it again in the future.
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Fed,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you are writing about this. I'd like it if you could keep going with this thought and get more specific. Can you think of a time when you thought you fully understood something, but later discovered your understanding was incomplete? Can you think of a time you considered a "failure" and describe what made it a failure? Was it someone else's judgment making you see something you created as less that perfect? Was it a mistaken identity? The more specific you can be in your analysis, the more you can learn from the experience.