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Failure Comes Before Improvement

posted by janrinok on Tuesday March 04 2014, @04:30AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-should-be-getting-better-sometime-soon dept.

Anonymous Coward writes:

"In a timely way for those of us building a new community at Soylent News, the BBC has collected musings on the importance of failure. A few quotes:

'The quest for perfectionism is 'the enemy of achievement' and that the more we seek to get everything exactly right, the less we actually get done.' Heather Hainbury, Headmistress of Wimbledon High School.

'If the failure was our own fault we become more tolerant of human error, and if the failure was the result of external factors, of circumstance, an unkind coalition beyond our control, then we learn about the limits of willpower and self-determination. We see how our own agency interacts with context and fortune.' Ed Smith, Author and former professional cricketer.

'If your venture doesn't work out, but you did everything you could to make it a success, that's what we call an honest failure, and that's seen as an honourable thing... Whereas if your venture didn't work out because you spent too much time at networking events, you weren't doing your customer research, and you were just lazing around, then that's what we would call a dishonest failure.' Stewart McTavish, Director of IdeaSpace in Cambridge, a community and support network for entrepreneurs."

 
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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by German Sausage on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:42AM

    by German Sausage (1750) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:42AM (#10458)

    "The quest for perfectionism is the enemy of achievement". Why the added "ism" Heather? Why not say "The quest for perfection is the enemy of achievement". It's shorter, simpler, and actually makes sense.

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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by jmoschner on Tuesday March 04 2014, @06:19AM

    by jmoschner (3296) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @06:19AM (#10473)

    "The quest for perfectionism is the enemy of achievement". Why the added "ism" Heather? Why not say "The quest for perfection is the enemy of achievement". It's shorter, simpler, and actually makes sense.

    Maybe she wasn't trying to be perfect?

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 04 2014, @10:32AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 04 2014, @10:32AM (#10542) Journal

    I was somehow expecting something on the line of quest for perfectionism as the antithesis of the quest to WTFism.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

  • (Score: 1) by dyingtolive on Tuesday March 04 2014, @01:59PM

    by dyingtolive (952) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @01:59PM (#10618)

    A person should not believe in an 'ism,' he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon: 'I don't believe in Beatles. I just believe in me.' A good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus. I'd still have to bum rides off of people.

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!

    • (Score: 1) by TK on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:37PM

      by TK (2760) on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:37PM (#11560)

      "The walrus was Paul."

      --
      The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum