英语专业晨读美文-人生篇 6 Failure Is a Good Thing

[00:06.56]Failure is a Good Thing

[00:07.80]Last week, my grand-daughter started kindergarten,

[00:12.18]and I wished her success. I was lying.

[00:15.04]What I actually wish for her is failure.

[00:17.67]I believe in the power of failure.

[00:19.99]Success is boring. Success is proving

[00:24.19]that you can do something that you already know you can do,

[00:27.18]or doing something correctly the first time,

[00:29.94]which can often be a problematic victory.

[00:32.85]First-time success is usually a fluke.

[00:35.82]First-time failure, by contrast, is expected;

[00:39.32]it is the natural order of things.

[00:41.90]Failure is how we learn. I have been told of an African phrase

[00:46.12]describing a good cook as“she who has broken many pots”.

[00:50.17]If you've spent enough time in the kitchen to

[00:53.32]have broken a lot of pots,

[00:54.93]probably you know a lot about cooking.

[00:57.61]I once had a dinner with a group of chefs,

[01:00.18]and they spent time comparing knife wounds

[01:03.10]and burn scars. They knew how much credibility

[01:06.04]their failures gave them.

[01:07.45]I earn my living by writing a daily newspaper column.

[01:10.97]Each week I am aware that one column

[01:13.69]is going to be the worst column.

[01:15.62]I don't set out to write it; I try my best every day.

[01:19.31]I have learned to cherish that column.

[01:22.15]A successful column usually means

[01:24.66]that I am treading on familiar ground,

[01:26.84]going with the tricks that work or dressing 1 up

[01:29.76]popular sentiments in fancy words.

[01:32.65]Often in my inferior columns,

[01:34.65]I am trying to pull off something

[01:36.72]I've never done before,

[01:38.02]something I'm not even sure can be done.

[01:40.40]My younger daughter is a trapeze artist.

[01:43.32]She spent three years putting together an act.

[01:46.54]She did it successfully for years.

[01:48.87]There was no reason for her to change the act—

[01:51.78]but she did anyway. She said she was no longer

[01:55.59]learning anything new and she was bored.

[01:57.94]So she changed the act. She risked failure

[02:02.07]and profound public embarrassment 2 in order to feed her soul.

[02:05.52]My granddaughter is a perfectionist.

[02:08.30]She will feel her failures,

[02:10.23]and I will want to comfort her. But I will also,

[02:13.94]I hope, remind her of what she learned,

[02:16.62]and how she can do whatever it is better next time.

[02:19.80]I hope I can tell her, though,

[02:21.84]that it's not the end of the world.

[02:23.88]Indeed, with luck, it is the beginning.