How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?

Life is a string of failures, or at least more notable for its failures than successes. Eventually you come to accept it as you find strength in what’s gone wrong. Learning from our failures will grant us the knowledge to improve, helping on the way to success.

As a gamer Dark Souls is the famous one for try and try again (or die and die again). The game beats players with unforgiving combat where mistakes will cost you dearly, one wrong dodge can set you back to the last checkpoint. However, on your journey you would have learned how to deal with the path ahead, making it easier to eventually win. The same goes for Elden Ring or any other Souls-like. Any knowledge or skill based game goes the same, Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a cruel game that relies on planning and player knowledge. Using knowledge to your advantage is such a big thing on the road to success in saving all the fictional worlds and just like real life it’s trial and error, retaining only what you’ve learned.

I was made redundant from my first job almost a year ago, it was truly spirit crushing and I was quite unfair to myself, believing that I wasn’t good enough and seeing only the unwanted worker. Once I got a bit of confidence back I made a plan. I worked out how to get work by lowering my expectations a little. After getting my second job in a discount retailer I threw myself into it, gaining as much as I could in terms of beneficial knowledge. I grew physically stronger, I learned the rules as much as possible about workplace machinery, how code rotation works and anything else I was allowed to see. The boss realised I was reliable and not dim, so he allowed me to take on the role of Ice Champion which left me sort of in charge of something. Roughly five months later I quit that job. I saw myself as good enough to look for more, better even (with the attitude change I had gained some pride in myself). Today – the day of posting – was my first day properly working in my third job which is higher paid than either of the jobs I’d done before. As far as the pursuit of happiness is concerned I’m not sure yet, but the idea that I’ve moved to improve my skill set, knowledge and finances is definitely a success. My most painful, most disappointing failure in losing that first job has spurred me on to find a future for myself.

No matter how bad things seem, how dark the day, it’s always worth remembering that there’s a fire to light somewhere and once the spark inside you burns bright enough success may be just past the next demon, whether that demon is mental for you or even digital. Learn from failure and your knowledge will light the way as it did for me. Hopefully things will keep looking up… although I didn’t like walking home in the snow.