The Value of Failure

When Thomas Edison was working on the invention of the light bulb he said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Even though Thomas Edison did not call his mistakes failures, he learned from them, and continued to try other combinations until he finally succeeded. People fail, just like Thomas Edison, but they can make the choice to learn from their mistakes. William Zinsser, the author of “College Pressures” discusses the importance and value failure can have in people’s lives by relating it to the experiences students face while in college. The significance of failure is very critical in people’s lives because it can help them to learn from their mistakes, and it gives them motivation. According to Zinsser, there are many students that are “highly motivated” in college, and have a dire need to succeed and graduate to a secure career that will provide them with financial security. Although this is important, William Zinsser stresses that students today are too narrow minded, and need to experiment and “learn that defeat is as instructive as victory and is not the end of the world.” In today’s world and with the current state of the economy students want to study fields that will reward them with high salaries or simply the major their parents choose for them. However, students should study the field they are passionate about and along the way, learn from their mistakes and come out with a tremendous amount of knowledge. Having studied a “wide variety of courses” is what William Zinsser says he would look for if he were an employer looking for employees. He values this type of person because over the years they have learned from their mistakes and are more qualified than “those who narrowly pursued safe subjects and high grades.” Most great accomplishments or inventions have come at the cost of many failures, but from those failures a wise person can learn, and apply that knowledge to overcome obstacles in life.
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