Lessons in Failure

The last issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly had a most interesting article about the importance of failure--as in some of the greatest scientific discoveries happened on the way to unraveling something else. Likewise, a recent editorial in the Inquirer cited Greg Mortenson's work building schools in Afghanistan--all of which came about because he got lost on his way back to base camp after failing to climb K2, the second highest mountain in the world.

He was disoriented, exhausted, dehydrated and ultimately rescued by people from a small village in Korphe, Pakistan who taught him the importance of building relationships and projects slowly, one cup of tea at a time. When he set out to build his schools, he did not embark on the ambitious plan to educate the third world. He just wanted to build one school to repay the people who saved his life.

How that one school became his life work is the story of his two books, Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools, an ambitious and successful personal journey that began with failure.

So what is the moral of the story? That while you are searching for the goal you hope to attain, pay attention to the obstacles that trip you up along the way. In each one, may be the beginning of something even more worthwhile than what you set out to achieve.

It takes guts to fail and even more to realize there's a lot to learn from making mistakes.