Failing to succeed...

The best results in life revolve around failures- our failures. Sure it's nice to succeed, but continual success doesn't lead to a rich and fulfilling life. That is only achieved through failure, or more specifically, dealing with failure in a proper mindset.
Continued success robs us of appreciation, and diminishes the value of our success. Failure, on the other hand, makes us all the more aware of the beauty of our accomplishments once we finally do succeed. And appreciation is a necessary ingredient to a rich and fulfilled life.  Our greatest success stories are often founded on lives that experienced bitter failure, but it wasn't the failure that is important to note, but that each time our heroes picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and tried again. And when they finally did succeed their success was all the more rich and rewarding because of what they went through to obtain it. Here's just a few examples:
There was once a man who went to war with the rank of Captain. He left the war with the rank of private. He then went into business, but his business failed. He studied law, but failed there too, criticized for being too impractical and temperamental. He turned to politics, but was defeated in his first attempt at the legislature, then was defeated in his first attempt at Congress, was defeated in his bid to be commissioner of the General Land Office, He was then defeated in his Senatorial bid, and next defeated in attempt to win the vice-presidency, then defeated in a senatorial bid again. He wrote to a friend, "I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face earth." Who was this man? Our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln.
Another popular hero once commented, "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot... and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. That's why I succeed." - Michael Jordan
Thomas Edison failed a thousand times before inventing the incandescent light bulb. A reporter asked him how it felt to fail a thousand times and he replied, "I didn't fail 1000 times. The light bulb was an invention with a thousand steps." Confucius said,"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall." Charles Kettering said, "Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world. One fails toward success."
Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before succeeding. He view on failure? "Failure provides the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently." F.W. Woolworth, R.H. Macy, Albert Einstein, Louis Pasteur, all faced repeated failures in life, only to achieve great things. Eric Hoffer writes, "Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay." How true is that! We need to remember those trials to fully appreciate the richness of our success. Failing correctly is paramount to success.
So when life gets you down, when you feel like a complete and utter failure, remember those who've gone before, who've set the bar on failure to heights we will probably never reach, and take heart. Failing is often the main prerequisite to success. As Robert F. Kennedy wrote, "Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly." Fail today- tomorrow may just be your heyday...
Food for thought...