The Virtues of Failure

This is written by Donald M. Murray, Pulitzer Prize winner, and is excerpted from The Boston Globe, date unknown:

The virtues of failure are many, but the most important are:
• Failure allows escape. I spent a night trying to figure out how to escape a hated job on Time magazine. The next morning I was fired. Problem solved.

• Failure stimulates creativity. We are problem solving animals, and each failure teaches us what doesn't work so we can move toward what does. A failed glue led to Post-it notes.

• Failure encourages risk taking. After you have failed a few times, you learn the world doesn't care, that, in fact, the world was not even watching. It becomes natural—and exciting—to take risks.

• Failure helps you discover that what you have lost may not have been what you wanted to keep.

• Failure erases the scorn you once felt for others who failed. In its place comes empathy, compassion, even respect.

• Failure motivates.

When Murray was asked what he taught as a professor, he usually answered, “Failure. What we cannot do reveals what we can do.”