Here's a lesson they don't teach you in school: what seems like failure can turn into success if you learn to let go.
The famous inventor Thomas Edison once said, “I haven't failed, I just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” Failure is just another way of learning how to think and be, the goal of life that should be taught in schools.
Another truth we learn by living is that loss is another way of saying change, and change is something that happens all the time to each of us in different ways.
Think about it: when you leave home for the first time to go to school, college, or work, aren't you giving up people and a comfortable place? Are you losing something to gain something?
I believe we learn just as much from failure as we do from success, if not more. Success feels good in the moment but quickly loses its luster, while failure hurts until you let go of what caused it and choose not to repeat it.
Show me anyone who claims to have never failed, and I will show you a real loser at the only game called life. They try to fool others, but in reality they are fooling themselves.
Growing up, one of my favorite authors was Ray Bradbury, whose science fiction novels invited my young mind to imagine worlds beyond ordinary experience.
You've probably read Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles at least once. Published in 1950, just a few years after the World War, the book depicts Earth's destruction of Mars and its subsequent colonization of the planet after wiping out all the Martians who were already there before humans arrived.
Bradbury also warned about authoritarianism in his 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451, in which books are not only banned but also burned.
In works he wrote more than half a century ago, Bradbury spoke out against the greed that is destroying the planet and the book bans that undermine our ability to consider new ideas.
I came across a quote by Bradbury recently that reminded me of how to live best: “Before you can learn to get, you must learn to let go. Life is something to touch, not to squeeze. Sometimes you must relax and let it happen, and sometimes you must go with it.”
John C. Morgan writes about everyday ethical issues, both personal and societal. He is a writer and a teacher. His e-mail address is drjohncmorgan@yahoo.com.
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