Failure Leads to Success

Often in life we discover that failure leads to success.

Let’s think about it. Two parents are raising two children: Joey and Johnny.

When Joey’s learning to walk, his mom is holding his hands as walks across the room to his dad. Along the path, walking across the room, Joey is secure, he can’t fall because mom’s holding him, and he feels protected. And everything he does is perfect in the eyes of his parents, because he successfully walked across the room to daddy.

Now, Johnny on the other hand, has parents who have a different philosophy. The mom lets go of his hands, and as Johnny’s walking across the room, he falls. He starts to cry. Mommy says, “Johnny, get up, you can do it!” And she’s smiling. So Johnny gets up. The tears fall away and he keeps walking. He falls again. Again, he starts to cry. But the mom says “Johnny, you can do it!” So he gets up again and he finishes the walk across the room into his daddy’s arms.

What happened here? In the first case, Joey knew that mom and dad was taking care of him. He never fell, he never learned that there are things in life called failure, and he was perfect. In the second case, Johnny he found out that you can fall, but you can take care of yourself, that you can make your own path, and that you don’t have to be perfect in life, the steps you take are good enough.

And, as Abe Lincoln once said, “I am not concerned that you have fallen. I am concerned that you arise.”