Celebrating Failure

Celebrating Failure

1) Tell us about a time this past semester that you failed -- whether in this class, or outside of this class. Don't spare any details! It'd be even better if there was something you tried several times this semester, and failed each time. 

One specific example of a time I failed this semester was not being able to complete the “What’s Your Secret Sauce” assignment (16A). Upon reading the description of the assignment, I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to transfer my friend’s audio files from the recordings on my phone to another platform, such as YouTube or SoundCloud. Up to that point in the semester, I was able to handle the technology aspects of the assignments and was thus able to turn everything in on time. The failure itself was believing I knew how to do this trickery before attempting to see if it would work beforehand. After I had acquired all the recordings, I could not find a way to solve this problem; I remember paying iCloud to upgrade my account, downloading shady MP4 applications, reading multiple confusing articles, and even calling friends to see if they could help me out. This breakdown occurred at about 10:00 PM, and therefore, I simply ran out of time to solve this problem. All in all, the most aggravating part of this experience was having all the necessary parts for the assignment completed, to still lose three points to something that could have been easily avoided.

2) Tell us what you learned from it.  

After this experience, I realized that I took advantage of my prior successes in other assignments and misjudged what was needed to complete this one. Looking inwards, I learned that growing complacent with success is equally as harmful as being lazy or not pushing yourself enough to succeed.

3) Reflect, in general, on what you think about failure. Failure is hard, isn't it? It's embarrassing, sure, but it also means that we have to change something about ourselves. Talk about how you handle failure (emotionally, behaviorally). Finally, talk about how this class has changed your perspective on failure -- are you more likely to take a risk now than you were just a few months ago?

There’s no hiding that I have continuously failed in baseball, schoolwork, and relationships (among others). Although, after the appropriate time has passed, you begin to realize where you went wrong. This process is a beautiful thing indeed because there is always capacity for you to learn from these failures, which is ultimately the true value. Yes, it absolutely sucks in that moment, and you will probably not be thinking about this value when there are multiple people witnessing your failure(s). After this stage of self-pity, I start to feel accountable for my actions and process how I could avoid this failure next time – sometimes this happens over two hours, four months, or even years. In turn, and regardless of the failure, you gained some form of humility and knowledge others do not possess.

After taking this class, I feel more open to take risks not so much because I “feel smarter,” but strangely because I have failed a few times. Throughout these failures, my strengths have been practiced and my weaknesses have been exposed, thus making my ability to analyze certain risks just that much clearer.