You may encounter many
defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to
encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how
you can still come out of it. (Maya Angelou)
When I fail at something, why do I
feel demoralized and devastated? I know that life oftentimes presents
challenges, but when I fail to succeed, the hurt is overwhelming. Because I am
feeling defeated, I want to forsake everything. Why do I feel this way
and what can I do to help myself? When I proposed this question to students, I
received the following answers:
I feel like I
have put my all into something to succeed. When I do fail, I learn from my
mistakes and do better. (Javier
Franklin)
I feel like as
if I do everything I can do to succeed, but when I fail, I learn and figure out
what went wrong and then succeed in that task. (Tom Killingsworth)
When I come face
to face with an obstacle or I feel like I’m going to fail, I always keep my head
up and keep pushing to do my best and even pray about it. (Mckenzie Hunter)
I feel like I
tried my hardest and sometimes I lose my faith. Yet, when I fail and do bad, I
learn just to keep trying harder and try to do my best. (Martavious Jackson)
When I fail, it
puts me down, but then I think to myself about what I did wrong and learn from
my mistakes. (Marlene Rivera)
Comparable like others, I tend to
forget that one of the most important ingredient when baking a cake is the baking
powder. Baking powder alone lacks the necessary sustainability to produce a
cake. Yet, the baker will combine baking powder in the batter with butter,
eggs, flour, shorten, sugar, milk, and salt. Then, he places this mixture in
the oven. At the right temperate of heat
and at a certain time, the cake will rise to a natural state for consumption.
Mainly, the baking powder is a leavening agent which causes the batter to rise.
However, the baker must apply the correct amount of baking powder to the batter.
If he applies too much the cake will taste bitter while too little will result
in a tough cake. Baking powder at the right amount will infuse all the
ingredients into a mouthwatering cake that will make you want to slap someone
or you may even receive the highest compliment of all, “You put your foot in
that cake.”
Likewise, failure is a very
important ingredient in the pursuit of life. Failure is constantly occurring
around us, but one must view failure like baking powder for it is the only
ingredient that will cause you to rise toward success. Failure is very
important in your pursuit of success. It hurts and causes unnecessary pain and
humiliation, but failure is worthwhile to produce the desired outcome that you
are expecting. Mainly, without failure, one is less capable of realizing the
greater achievement that follows. Without failure, one would never appreciate
the value of success. Without failure, one would never understand the
differences between empathy and sympathy. Therefore, one must learn the value
of failure when it occurs. Failure will cause you to identify lessons learned
while increasing your chances for success on the next attempt. For instance. Thomas
Edison quoted, “I
have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work” in his
pursuit of 1,093 U.S. Patents and 2,332 patents worldwide from items that use
electricity to concrete in commercial buildings.
So the next time you fail, just remind yourself of the
process of baking a cake. Without baking powder the cake will never rise;
likewise, your failures will allow you have success. Instead of thinking
negative toward your failure, just try thinking positive as noted in this
poster from Pinterest.
