By Song Kwang
Photo courtesy of Singaporean Says
Few would know who Samuel Beckett is – well, I didn’t know who he was either. But what caught my attention was his quote “Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better” that I came across whilst reading the book “It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be.”
When I learnt what a failure is or what failing means, it was when a cane-weilding parent was chasing after me in the house. From the very beginning, the word ‘failure’ had been stigmatised with something negative, something feared, something that might look like a cane that leaves me crying in pain. We were taught in school that it is bad to be a failure or anything worse.
But today, as an adult, it seems failure is not the end of the world but part of a learning process – and precisely because it is not the end of the world, many of my generation now seek to unlearn the negative connotation of the word. How many stories have we heard of undying determination and perserverance – with countless failures in between – before ultimate success is achieved? Compare this with the stories of ‘first attempt successes’ and we can see that there is definitely more of the former than the latter.
Personally, I recall a guy called Nick who was born disabled. His philosophy is, “I will try, and try, and try again. It doesn’t matter how many times you fail, but how strong we finish at the end of the day.” I find this to be true even in my own life where my resolve was strengthened and my threshold increased. In fact, looking back I’ve grown to be a much stronger person after numerous failures in various aspects of my business and my personal life.
Failure is only temporary, for what comes after is of greater value. Besides, life isn’t about the destination, it’s the journey that matters.
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Thomson Edison discovered 2000 ways how not to make a light bulb or did he fail 2000 times?
If only our government has this mentality, then we will have more creativity and more entrepreneurship. But unfortunately that’s not how it is in our society and that’s certainly not the mentality of our government.
In Singapore, if you fail just once, you are deemed a failure for life ! Sad. :(
I agree with you Jackal. Unfortunately, our country’s system is as such and we are brought up this way. And so are the people who run the country, scholars, who might never had made a mistake in life.
But it is precisely the reason that we know it should not be, we should not allow it to hamper our growth. They can dictate the system, but not our learning.
Unfortunately, Song Kwang, even Human Resource is practising thus. Take a look at Jobstreet portal, even the Monetary Authority of Singapore is offering positions of Directorship to Filipinos as if Singaporeans do not have the talent or failures.
Though not all scholars, most scholars, because of their academic success, dare not take the entrepreneurship route because they dare not face failures. I know of one President Scholar. He was my Commanding Officer in the army and ROD 6 months after me. He became my colleague in the financial sector as an Asst Treasurer with one of the European banks. Every morning at 6.30am he look shacked coming out from the MRT. (He worked normal office hours). 6 months later, couldn’t take the pressure, he quit and joined one the construction companies. Now he is with one of TLC companies holding a position that was created for him.
Knowing him, and having played poker with him, despite his present position, he is a real failure.
Failure is not the problem. The real problem is when they fail, they dont come clean and that bound to create alot of problems as whenever you act as if all is well and fine when the ship is sinking, its bound to raise more questions than answers.
As this essay rightly highlighted it pays to come clean. Then and only then can we work as one people to solve the problems, but what can you do when you have people who think they have not failed but even have the incredulity to fly here and there and give this and that interview on how to run your country better,
Just imagine if Steven Covey himself has all the seven habits of highly INEFFECTIVE people and he is going around the world giving talks of the seven habits of highly effective people?