Pauline Estrem's Why Failure Is Good For Success

Improved Essays
After reading Pauline Estrem’s “Why Failure Is Good for Success,” I have started to have an understanding that the article was about many ways people see failure and the ways they deal with it. Sometimes failure can seem like the more probable outcome but sometimes those failures can be turned into a lesson and that person's attitude towards failure can contribute to how they handle it.
The first major point Estrem’s article makes is that no matter badly you want to do something, there’s going to be an option of failure and it’s up to you to decide if you want to take that risk or not. In the article, Estrem quotes someone named Ralph Heath from a book he wrote called Celebrating Failure: The Power of Taking Risks, Making Mistakes and Thinking Big. In the book, he says “Instead they chose to play it safe, to fly below the radar, repeating the same safe choices over and over again. They operate under the belief they generally never attempt anything great and which they could possibly fail (or succeed).”(Estrem, 2016 para 3.) I one hundred percent agree with and think is a perfect quote for the first main point. Almost everything we do in life has some sort of risk and sometimes the risk of failure happening is greater than success but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t even try. Living a sheltered life scared of failure isn’t really living it’s avoiding the inevitable that is sometimes failing. The best example of taking a risk knowing that failure is most likely going to happen is me writing this paper. I’m not skilled at writing papers and I could probably save myself a lot of embarrassment if I didn’t write it, but I know my grade can’t take another zero so here I am taking a risk of writing a paper that will hopefully bring my grade up. The second major point that stood out is that failure is up to up to you. Something people don’t think about but should because it’s such a good way to think about failure. When you fail something you are faced with the choice to either quit or try again and know what not to do the second or you know the 1,000’s time. Thomas Edison is a prime example of choosing to not let failure stop him from doing something he really wanted to accomplish. Edison failed 1,000’s times trying to make the light bulb and apparently when he was asked what it was like to fail 1,000’s times he simply said “I didn’t fail 1,000’s times, the light bulb was just an invention with 1,000’s steps.”(Estrem, 2016 para. 2) Failure is just a way of life we can’t always be good at something right away if so life would be boring. If we got everything the first time there would be no challenges in life and we’d never get to see someone’s full potential if they don’t get that little taste of failure that makes them want to do something again and again until it’s above and beyond. Failure to do something can sometimes teach some of the best lessons in life. The best way I can think of to tell you what I mean is to tell you

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