The Necessity of Failure

“I think you should make your own mistakes, the way that I made mine,” Baxter writes.  “Why should you try to avoid failure, misery, heartbreak, sorrow, drunkenness, sexual confusion and apathy?  I couldn’t avoid them, you probably won’t.”  Even though this was fairly early in the essay, it was still one of the things I most related to.  A lot of times in life I (and I think other people too) try to be perfect.  Every time we fall down, we fail a test, we don’t get something we want, we view it as a bad thing.  One of the main points I think Baxter is trying to make is that it is okay to fail.  Everyone has letdowns in their lives; everyone goes through times where they are unhappy.  The people who take their failures and learn from them are the people who will end up successful. 

                   

After his numerous bombed novels, Baxter tells of how he was extremely pessimistic and even was very close to giving up writing altogether.  The story that ended up being his first success was the one that was about himself – a story about a man who fails to become a good musician.  As he was able to really invoke his own voice into the story, it became a success.  As he continued to write more and more successful stories, he would incorporate parts of his previous failed novels into his new ones.  This for me is a symbol of how we can take our past failures and turn them around.  As hard as it may be, I will make a resolution to make my failures successes.  If I get a bad grade on a test, instead of drowning myself in sorrow, I vow to think to myself, “Okay, why did you get the grade you did and how can you do better next time?”  Part of life for me is simply improving – in all aspects.  But, we cannot improve upon something without failing first.  Failure is not terrifying, it is necessary.