① Failure Is Our Friend No one wants to fail.



② We all want to succeed in everything we try and to avoid failure.



③ Nonetheless, failing and learning from our bitter experiences is necessary for success.



④ In fact, the most successful people are often people who have experienced many more failures than others.



⑤ One of the most famous examples of someone who learned from failure was Thomas Edison.



⑥ He was one of the world's greatest inventors, and he acquired over 1,000 patents.



⑦ Like a wizard, he seemed to take ideas from thin air.



⑧ However, he also faced tremendous difficulties.



⑨ Edison is said to have failed 9,999 times before creating a perfect light bulb.



⑩ Unlike the average person, Edison saw these mistakes not as failures but as an inevitable part of the invention process.



⑪ In response to a question about his errors, he once said, "I have not failed 9,999 times.



⑫ I've successfully found 9,999 ways that will not work." ⑬ Of course, he was right. ⑭ He was able to achieve success after failing repeatedly.





① These failures can not only motivate us to find a successful way to accomplish our goal but also help us to grow in wisdom and in spirit.



② Toni Morrison began writing when she was in college, but she did not produce anything good enough to publish for many years.



③ Her troubled marriage, divorce, and life as a single mother made it even harder for her to write.



④ At 39, she published her first novel, The Bluest Eye, which received mixed reviews and did not sell well.



⑤ However, all her hardships added depth to her novels and encouraged her to improve her writing skills.



⑥ Later in her life, Morrison wrote masterpieces such as Song of Solomon, Beloved, and Jazz.



⑦ In 1993, she became the first African-American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.





① Sometimes failure can lead us to success by showing us that we are not good at something.



② The fashion designer Vera Wang, for example, found a path to success, thanks to her failure.



③ At the age of seven, she began devoting herself to figure skating, hoping to compete in the Olympics.



④ When she was 19, however, she failed to make the U.S. Olympic team and quit figure skating.



⑤ She experienced a brutal letdown.



⑥ While staying in Paris, she happened to discover her passion for and talent in fashion design, which led her to move to fashion as a career.



⑦ After returning to America, she started working as a salesperson in a clothing store.



⑧ Developing her career from editor of a fashion magazine to design director for a global brand for about 20 years, she eventually ended up designing clothes on her own.



⑨ Today, Vera Wang is a world-famous designer whose elegant dresses are sought after by celebrities the world over.





① Still, wouldn't it be even better if we could be successful without ever failing?



② We may think so, but in the end, performing without failure doesn't necessarily produce lasting success.



③ All success with no failure often leads a person to arrogance and carelessness.



④ As a result, the always successful person or organization could suddenly encounter a disaster.



⑤ Between the 1960s and the 1980s, NASA, the U.S. agency in charge of researching and exploring space, completed one successful mission after another with no significant failure.



⑥ In 1968, it launched Apollo 8, the first manned spacecraft to fly around the moon.



⑦ In 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and the NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person in history to walk on the moon.





① During the following years, NASA successfully sent five other rockets to the moon.



② Even when the oxygen tank in Apollo 13 exploded on its way to the moon in 1970, its entire crew was rescued, and they were able to return home safely.



③ This continued series of successes made the decision-makers at NASA too self-assured and unable to imagine failure.



④ In 1986, NASA planned to send its second space shuttle, Challenger, into orbit.



⑤ Right before the launch, engineers expressed concerns about mechanical malfunctions and advised that the launching be postponed.



⑥ However, NASA managers did not take their warnings seriously and launched Challenger as planned.



⑦ Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after it was launched, resulting in the deaths of its seven crew members.





① Edison, Morrison, and Wang all suffered big failures, but they never gave up.



② They learned from their mistakes and went on to experience even greater triumphs.



③ Like many successful people, we should view failure not as the opposite of success, but as an indispensable step on the path to reach success.



④ After all, the only way to avoid failures is to do nothing.



⑤ J.K. Rowling said that suffering many failures in her life eventually enabled her to write the Harry Potter series.



⑥ She remarked, "Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way."



⑦ By risking and confronting failures and learning from them, we can become wiser and stronger.