Success in Failure

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Today, I was inspired by failure. Excuse the Yoda introduction.

This post's theme began yesterday when I noticed someone's eyeglass frames that immediately reminded me of a pair I own which then later made me think of the bespectacled actors who played part of NASA's ground control crew in Apollo 13.  Apollo 13 has been dubbed NASA's successful failure, because despite its 'almost-landed-on-the-moon' drama due to technical mishaps, the crew returned home alive. 

Yesterday afternoon, I attended a talk by a professor who has been cited thousands (maybe millions) of times because of his work. As expected, he was humble, funny, and stated 'I don't know' with a matching shrug followed by valid musings when he was asked something. He lightly ranted that his first paper was rejected a few times (a paper that led to other papers which then resulted to a cascade of other breakthroughs). 

Other famous persons came to mind (see photo image above).  

I'm fervently hoping that one day, I will look back and appreciate all the times I've been in some kind of 'so near yet so far' situation. While it's tempting to enumerate all those moments in my life-- I won't.  Just so I could avoid sounding obnoxious like 'well, I didn't achieve this because of this or that but look at me now' humble-brag. I shiver and cringe at the thought of being that kind of person.

Of course, I don't aim to fail because I'm certain that there's nowhere else to go but up. What I'm trying to say is that there are character-building benefits related to failure. My very first post about the advantages of not being an overachiever is somewhat related...