How do you define "failure"?
@TheCasualReporter (283)
France
January 14, 2009 4:11pm CST
I started a discussion last week asking, "How do you define success in life?" and thought I'd ask the other side of the question. We usually tend to define goals based on measuring achievement but rarely failure. Is it important to do so? In some cases I'd argue it is because stopping a thing deemed a failure frees up time and resources to pursue other goals and ambitions. (Think Iraq, for example, if you believe the current majority point of view.) What ambitions or goals have you pursued for a certain period of time and then recognized as a failure? When did you know it was a failure? In retrospect, did you give up too hastily? Or did you drag it on too long? Interested to hear your comments.
1 person likes this
2 responses
@amazingheart (781)
• Philippines
15 Jan 09
There are certain things that I say myself it's time to stop. For me it is necessary to know when to recognize things that it's really not meant to success. It's a good failure I guess. It is a failure when you stop dreaming, and when you seems to give-up, it is a failure when you have not try things and you are just sitting and waiting to make things happens.
@thebeaddoodler (4262)
• Lubbock, Texas
14 Jan 09
Hmm, well failure could mean failure to recognize when what you're doing isn't working. I had a little shop where I sold hand made soaps, salves and other natural healing items. I kept that little shop for two years and went in debt doing it. I should have given up on the shop long before I did, but I've gained a little business by selling soaps wholesale, and letting others retail them.
Sometimes you just have to go at something from a different angle. While the shop was a failure, the business isn't.
I don't believe any failure is a complete loss. You always learn a lesson from your failures as well as from successes.
