7A: It's Not Right But It's Okay...

In my opinion I believe that failure is never encouraged and that people are always pressured not to fail. From a young age we are taught to try and make the least of mistakes as possible. We were trained how to speak, walk, write, read, color, behave, and much more, in ways that were considered most perfect. Whenever we happened to fall short of expectations we were scolded and instructed to do better. This is where the fear of not being good enough or ‘failing’ started to become instilled in us.

People never want to be perceived as inadequate or as a failure. Therefore, I also believe that there is no place where it’s completely safe to fail. However, I do think that there are certain people that are more accepting of failure than others. For instance, even though it seems that family are the most judgmental towards us when we make mistakes, deep down they’re the ones who accept us the most and the biggest reason why they react so harshly in times of failure is because they want us to have the best life possible. On the other hand, society is probably the worst place to fail because everything is a constant competition and failure can discredit you and make you easier to replace. That’s part of the reason why doctors are so ashamed of admitting their mistakes.

 
The impact is negative when we fear failure and stay in denial, because it halts progress. If we don’t acknowledge the problems then they are going to continue to happen. That’s why it is important to realize that it’s impossible to be perfect. We all have some sense of what we are capable of and it’s obvious that some plans are just unrealistic. I feel that when we set such far-fetched objectives were basically just setting ourselves up for failure, unhappiness and disappointment. As J.K Rowling mentioned “Achievable goals: the first step to self-improvement.” and “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.” Another thing that comes into mind on the subject of failing and improvement is deliberate practice. Instead of wallowing in shame we need to face our failures and continually work on fixing them so that we can eliminate our biggest weaknesses and hope that eventually we might master our work. It might not seem right when we fail but it’s okay as long as we can turn it into a learning experience and never give up.