Copyright (c) 2010 Stephen Lau

In life, failure is unavoidable--in fact, an essential aspect of living for life. Given that you have to live with failure as part and parcel of life, you might as well let your failure transform your life, instead of letting it ruin your life.

In this world, everybody wants success, not failure, and everybody is striving to succeed, to win; indeed, to many, life is all about winning, not losing. As a matter of fact, many of us think that if we don't win, we lose, and that if we don't get what we want (not what we need) from life, we have failed ourselves miserably. But this is not what life is all about. Life is about living out your experience--whether it is your success or failure--to find out who you are, and what you need, and thus transforming yourself as you plod along the arduous life journey. Life is not about winning or losing: it is about how you experience what life has to offer.

In life, as in everything else, failure and success are not black and white: they often blend into a continual flow of changing experience.

Fortunately or unfortunately, our society is saturated with books and instructional tools on self-improvement, and pursuit of success and happiness. We have all the weapons made available to us to fight failure and to guarantee success. Yet, we all fail one way or another. Because of the abundant resources available to fight failure, when we fail, we become less forgiving of our failure or of ourselves. The rampancy of mental depression is a strong testament to the inability to accept failure in our society.

All in all, to survive, we must learn coping with failure in our lives--this holds the key to the art of living well.

Coping with failure means understanding the notion of failure itself. Did we really fail? Or have we failed only to reach our too idealistic and unrealistic goals? Why did we fail? Was our failure due to circumstances, lack of effort, or simply doing all the wrong things? Understanding the nature of our failure is enlightening and illuminating.

Coping with failure means coming to terms with the notion that we have failed, and yet we "should" not allow ourselves to fail again.

Positive thinking, ironically enough, may only numb or mask our feelings of disappointment and disillusionment. We may also use other different strategies to distract our disappointment, such as binge eating on comfort food, taking drugs or alcohol, going on a shopping spree, or blaming ourselves and others for our failure. These strategies may or may not work for us. Ultimately, we may come to believe that we have failed ourselves in one way or another.

Do not be let down by any failure in your life. Instead, let your failure transform your life. This transformation means changing your perception of winning and your ego self. In life, we often associate birth with happiness and success, and death with sadness and failure. Transformation means your realization that life is a series of cycles of birth and death--or rather of success and failure. Once you grasp the significance of success and failure in human life, you may have a different perspective of your own failure, and may even learn the art of coping with failure. Transformation means embracing both success and failure--and not just welcoming success and rejecting failure.

In Christianity, it is through human failure that we appreciate our dependence on God: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9); in Buddhism, it is through human failure that we are awakened to the futility of our craving for success.

Yes, failure can transform you in a positive way if you perceive and comprehend its true nature.