30th June 2025
While discussing inventions, Thomas Edison’s associate, Walter S. Mallory, once said to him, “Isn’t it a shame that with the tremendous amount of work you have done, you haven’t been able to get any results?”
Edison replied, “Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won’t work.”
People tend to see success as positive and failure as negative, but Edison’s quote shows this isn’t always the case. There are many valuable lessons to be learned from failure, and this knowledge can help you become a more successful and productive.
A positive example of accepting failure & defeat is the case of Japan.
Japan, defeated by America in World War II, was occupied by American military forces in April 1945.
Gen Douglas Mac Arthur was appointed Supreme Commander in Japan, where he lived until 1951.
A new constitution, drawn up with his approval, and ratified by the Japanese Assembly on November 3, 1946, reduced the status of the Emperor of Japan to that of a mere symbolic head of state.
Under article 9, the Japanese nation was also made to pledge that “land, sea & air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.”
This constitution apparently sounded the death-knell of Japan as nation, but Japanese leaders showed great foresight in accepting it.
They saw that although it closed all doors to Japan from the military & political point of view, the door to industrial & scientific advance still stood wide open.
After withdrawing from the field of military & political confrontation, the Japanese began to exploit the remaining opportunities in the fields of science & industry.
Just 40 years later, historians, were compelled to write these words about Japan:
“Defeated in World War II (1945), Japan emerged from the ruins of war as one of the major economic powers in the world”
The acceptance of the present opens up hitherto unsuspected paths to the future.
Those who reject the realities of the present will themselves be debarred from access to the potentialities of the future.
Sometimes, In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time.
Failure is success if we learn from it.
Accept the realities of present, learn from failure, use it as an opportunity to create something better & stay blessed forever.