Accepting Failure
Failure is actually an attempt launched toward success. Unfortunately, the word “failure” itself often carries a negative meaning, which makes people instinctively want to avoid it.
But failure has value.
A few days ago, because I had dug too large a hole for myself earlier, I struggled for a long time in one project. In the end, I gathered the courage to refactor the entire project. But the project was too complex, and during the refactor I even began to doubt my own judgment. Halfway through, I rolled the version back, because that refactor had failed.
It was a failed attempt, but I do not think it produced nothing.
After rolling back to the old version, I continued refactoring and launched a second charge. I went through many small failures along the way, but by today the project has finally made great progress and is almost close to success.
In fact, people should be willing to face failure. If everything you do can succeed on the first try, that only means what you are doing is too simple.
Educational Philosophy
Many people remain mediocre and cannot live the life they truly like. Apart from objective conditions, one important reason is that they are unwilling to fail, or rarely experience truly valuable failure.
Suppose a person’s probability of success on each attempt is only 1%. After 100 attempts, the probability of succeeding at least once is about 63.4%. This does not even count the improvement brought by reviewing failures and correcting strategy. If every failure is followed by serious reflection, perhaps after 20 attempts the person may already have a high probability of approaching success.
There are many university courses. Most of them are indeed practical and help improve knowledge, such as advanced mathematics, college physics, and introductory computer courses. But few courses truly teach students how to summarize experience from failure, and few people systematically teach a methodology for “how to succeed.”
I think methodology is very important. Through abstraction and refinement, it forms a set of principles for doing things, helping people approach their goals faster.
Notice that I said approach goals faster, not succeed faster. Doing things must follow the nature of the matter. For example, if you want to marry someone, the key is not to rack your brains over getting a marriage certificate, but to get closer and build affection. Similarly, if you want to accomplish something, you should apply force toward the core of the matter, instead of staring only at the final result.
The mindset of being overly cautious and always trying to avoid failure is, in essence, anti-educational.
Everyone needs to move toward success through failure.