| "body"> | | | | working answer, and we would be reading by oil light... |
| Failure and success. Two words that everyone | | | | Edison's example is not just about having a positive |
| knows. Two words that dictate what people want. | | | | attitude. It is also about learning from mistakes. If |
| Everyone wants to succeed and wants to avoid | | | | you consider failure to be a learning experience, it will |
| failing. This doesn't mean that everyone has super | | | | not have power over you, and it can bring you closer |
| high ambitions and wants to be world famous and | | | | to success if you learn from the failures. Edison did |
| infinitely rich, but people in general want their | | | | not keep trying the same design over and over |
| endeavors to be successful - be it a successful | | | | hoping it would eventually work. He learned from |
| business, career, sports team, friendship, or family | | | | each experience, made adjustments, and tried again. |
| relationship. People do now want to fail in these | | | | This seems pretty obvious, but how many times do |
| things. | | | | we as people not do this? I know people who when |
| This is all fine and good, and people should strive to | | | | they get together always end up arguing, having the |
| succeed. The key however, is in how we define | | | | same argument, with each side saying the same thing |
| failure and success. Just because we don't get our | | | | and with each side hoping that maybe this time the |
| desired outcome doesn't mean we have to feel like | | | | other person will get their point. It never happens, so |
| failures. | | | | round and round they go. One definition of insanity is |
| Human perception is subjective. Two people can look | | | | doing the same thing over and over again while |
| at the same circumstance and define it in two | | | | expecting a different outcome. |
| different ways. The most famous and oft used | | | | The concept of failure and success became pretty |
| example of this is Thomas Edison. Depending on the | | | | clear to me while performing and directing improv |
| teller, Edison had between 1,000 and 10,000 failed | | | | comedy performances. Some performers, once they |
| attempts at the light bulb before he got it to work. | | | | had bypassed the novice stage and started to taste |
| To someone else, each of those attempts would | | | | some success on stage, would fall into patterns of |
| have been a failure. To Edison, each attempt was a | | | | doing the same characters and jokes on stage. This |
| success, because each one allowed him to eliminate a | | | | allowed them to stay safe and avoid the risks that |
| possibility and move one step closer to a working | | | | could lead to failure. These performers also did not |
| bulb. Had Edison considered his attempts failures, he | | | | grow, because it is from our failures that we learn |
| may have stopped long before discovering the | | | | and grow. |