Failure is a good thing

By Kevin Churchill

Last week,my granddaughter started kindergarten,and,as is conventional,I wished her success.I was lying.What I actually wish for her is failure.I believe in the power of failure.

Success is boring.Success is proving that you can do something that you already know you can do,or doing something correctly the first time,which can often be a problematical victory.First-time success is usually a fluke.First-time failure,by contrast,is expected;it is the natural order of things.

Failure is how we learn.I have been told of an African phrase describing a good cook as “she who has broken many pots.”If you've spent enough time in the kitchen to have broken a lot of pots,probably you know a fair amount about cooking.I once had a late dinner with a group of chefs,and they spent time comparing knife wounds and burn scars.They knew how much credibility their failures gave them.

I earn my living by writing a daily newspaper column.Each week I am aware that one column is going to be the worst column of the week.I don't set out to write it;I try my best every day.Still,every week,one column is inferior to the others,sometimes spectacularly so.

I have learned to cherish that column.A successful column usually means that I am treading on familiar ground,going with the tricks that work,preaching to the choir or dressing up popular sentiments in fancy words.Often in my inferior columns,I am trying to pull off something I've never done before,something I'm not even sure can be done.

My younger daughter is a trapeze artist.She spent three years putting together an act.She did it successfully for years with the Cirque du Soleil.There was no reason for her to change the act—but she did anyway.She said she was no longer learning anything new and she was bored;and if she was bored,there was no point in subjecting her body to all that stress.So she changed the act.She risked failure and profound public embarrassment in order to feed her soul.And if she can do that 15 feet in the air,we all should be able to do it.

My granddaughter is a perfectionist,probably too much of one.She will feel her failures,and I will want to comfort her.But I will also,I hope,remind her of what she learned,and how she can do whatever it is better next time.I probably won't tell her that failure is a good thing,because that's not a lesson you can learn when you're five.I hope I can tell her,though,that it's not the end of the world.Indeed,with luck,it is the beginning.

上周，孫女開辦了一個幼兒園。按常理，我預祝她成功。實際上我撒了慌，我真正對她的希望是失敗，因為我相信失敗的力量。

成功是令人厭煩的。成功只是證明你能夠做你已經知道自己會做的事情，或是第一次就能正確地做某件事情，而這通常是一次有問題的成功。第一次的成功通常都是僥幸的成功，相反的，第一次的失敗恰恰是值得期待的。這是事物的自然法則。

失敗是學習的過程。我聽說過一個在非洲用來形容大廚的詞語， “那個炒壞了很多鍋的”。如果你花了足夠時間在廚房，炒壞了無數鍋，那你也就掌握了大量烹飪方面的知識。有次我和廚師們共進晚餐，他們一直在比較刀傷和燙傷疤痕的多少，因為他們知道曾經的失敗帶來了無上的信譽。

我以為日報專欄寫作謀生。每周我都會意識到會有其中一個成為本周最差專欄。我并不刻意去這樣寫，而是每天都盡我最大的努力，但每周都還是會有一個專欄比其他的差，有時候差距還挺大。

我現在學會了去珍惜那個較差的專欄。一個成功的專欄通常也就意味著我循規蹈矩，采用一些有效的寫作技巧，向唱詩班布道或者用絢麗的語言修飾表達大眾的觀點。而在那些較差的專欄，我時常會去嘗試一些之前沒做過的事情，一些甚至都不確定能否完成的事情。

我小女兒是一名吊杠演員。她用三年的時間編排了一段表演，跟Cirque du Soleil（太陽馬戲團）一起多年來都非常成功。應該說沒有理由換掉這段表演—但是她最終還是換了。她說，她沒有再學到新東西，膩煩了。既然她已經膩煩了，繼續讓她的軀體承受那些壓力也就不再有任何意義。因此她更換了那段表演。為了滿足自己的靈魂，她甘愿承受失敗的風險，甘愿承受不被觀眾接受的尷尬處境。但如果她在15英尺的高空中能完成嘗試的話，那我們每個人也都會有能力去嘗試新事物。

孫女是個完美主義者，可能還會有些極端。她會遇到挫折失敗，我會想著去安慰她，但也會提醒，并且希望她從中所學到的東西和她下次可以如何更好去完成一件事情。我可能不會直接跟她說失敗是件好事，因為它不是一個年輕人容易吸取的教訓。然而，我希望我可以告訴她，這不是世界末日，實際上非常幸運，這才是開端。