It is hard for me to accept when something doesn’t work. I have an idea and I try to go from idea to reality and it doesn’t work! Soon I am feeling like a failure. It is easy to take a lack of success and label it as failure; when the reality isn’t failure but lack of success.
Perhaps you have heard how Thomas Edison unsuccessfully tried over 6ooo times to create a light bulb. On one occasion a young journalist challenged Edison saying to him, “Mr. Edison, why do you keep trying to make light by using electricity when you have failed so many times? Don’t you know that gas lights are with us to stay?”
To this Edison replied, “Young man, don’t you realize that I have not failed but have successfully discovered six thousand ways that won’t work!”
Because Edison believed an electric light was possible, he refused to give up. He tried countless types of material in his search for a filament that would work. He sent men to China, Japan, South America, Asia, Jamaica, Ceylon and Burma to search for fibers to test in his laboratory–all to no avail.
On October 21, 1879, after thirteen months of repeated failures, Edison finally succeeded in finding a filament that would work. Then the thought came to him, “Why not try a carbonized cotton fiber?”
After going through two spools of cotton, he eventually perfected a strand only to break it while trying to place it in a glass tube. He refused to give up and persevered with this idea for two more days and nights without sleep. Finally he succeeded in placing a carbonized thread into a vacuum-sealed bulb! Eureka! It worked.
Are you having trouble sticking to your diet? Has your exercise routine fallen by the wayside? Have you lost your job? Is your marriage falling apart? Are you feeling stress and that you are a failure? Are you ready to throw up your hands and give up?
Don’t do it!
Stop, take time to assess what hasn’t worked and figure out a new way, a new path, a new career, or a new routine.
Persevere!
Success is just around a corner; all you must do is find the corner.
You are NEVER a failure, until you stop trying!
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