Failure now equals success later?

Up until not so long ago I used to think that everywhere around the world people were taught that failure was unacceptable and had to be avoided at all cost. Naturally then, I was pretty happy with myself for not having, basically ever, failed at anything remotely important.

But then, back in my AIESEC days, I went to a short lecture given by Noam Kostucki  entitled something along the lines of "The success of failure". 

It was an eye-opener.

The lecture itself was a lot of fun, very educative and entertaining, but at the same time the conclusion I arrived at by the end of it was not so much fun. I realised never having failed was nothing to be proud of because it simply meant that I had never pushed myself enough, always played it safe and adapted my goals in such a way, that I'd always stay in my comfort zone. Sometimes almost crossing that fine line between the comfort zone and the whole universe outside of it, but never quite making the jump.

Recently, I've been talking to a couple of my (oh, so amazing!) friends about success, career, drive and ambition. I was saying how I felt I was lazy and didn't have the drive to pursue 'the real thing', always staying back and thus feeling underchallenged. They were saying how they wouldn't use the word 'lazy' in the same sentence they'd form to describe me. And so it got me thinking, once again, where does this discrepancy come from? How come they seem to take me as a motivated and driven person, and I see myself as a bit of slacker?

During the last couple of years, there's been basically one big mental block I'd had in my head but I decided I've had enough and started working on removing it. I was astonished to see that within a week of making the decision, I was on the best way to actually conquering it, let alone tackling the issue at hand. Let's see how things shape up in the following months but one thing's for sure - I'll have removed it before the end of the world. Whether I find great opportunities or just an end of one of the roads on the other side of that block - it doesn't really matter much. I'll still be the winner for having taken a shot at it.

One who fears failure limits his activities.
Failure is only the opportunity to more
intelligently begin again.
Henry Ford