I was teaching writing today and one of my students made a mistake that required that she start again. I came back a few minutes later and she was almost in tears. My first thought was that she was upset at me, but after talking to her, it came out that she was upset at herself for her mistake. I talked to her that it is ok to fail occassionally, as long as you learn from it. I then mentioned Thomas Edison, who failed repeatedly before he successfully got his light bulb to burn without burning out.
We, as people, fail on a regular basis. We fail God. We fail other people. We fail ourselves. Quite often when we do fail we beat ourselves up and then we don’t try again. We are not perfect and God knows that. We have to move on from our mistakes and failures and try again. I am reminded of the verse in Proverbs, “For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief” (Proverbs 24:16 – King James Version).
There is nothing wrong with failing. What matters is what we do when we fail. We need to get up and try again and again and again. . .
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