Failure

I thought I heard “failure is an event, not a person” and sure enough Zig Ziglar, a motivator said that.  It got me interested in what else may have been said on the subject.  I went to a few different places and found some things.
“It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” Bill Gates.  That one rings true with me and sums up what failure can do.  There is no doubt in my mind I celebrate success.  I love it.  Failure on the other hand is not enjoyable, but it can teach me heaps.  I can learn from both, but the hardest lessons are born of failure.
“Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.” Wilma Rudolph
I was familiar with Thomas Edison failures with inventing a light bulb before he found success. “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”  What I only just found out was that Dyson had 5,126 attempts before he invented a bagless vacuum cleaner.
Something Michael Jordan said is something I think about every time I hear a person say a player in a multitude of sports should have done this or that.  In my mind, it may be true but the speaker (whether me or another) was not playing the game. “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying.”
To me it is the difference between being in the stands watching, or out on the field playing.  Being out on the field is very different.  I reckon that is just as relevant to me as it is anyone playing a sport.  My field is different that is all.  For me, the lessons of participation are more lasting the lessons of observation.
That is one of the reasons why something Calvin Coolidge said carries weight with me. “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts.”  For me learning about something is very different to learning something.  Experience teaches while books inform.
For me Earnest Hemmingway is a beautiful writer.  I can only give a resounding yes to something he wrote. “man is not made for defeat.”  To me that ties in with the quote by Zig Ziglar that got me interested in this in the first place. “Failure is an event, not a person.”  Or as Abraham Lincoln said “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”  Being knocked down happens.  Getting up again is a choice.