How Failure Changed My Life

If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that everyone is going to fail sometimes. It's just a fact. The question isn't whether we will fail but rather how we'll allow failure to influence our lives?

Failure can either crush a person or lift a person up. And which happens is completely up to the person who has failed. Will the person experiencing failure use the experience to move forward or to fall back?

All too often a person's failure is caused by the injustice of another person. A person may be cheated out of something that is right fully theirs or they may be held back or put down by someone who feels threatened by them.

This is what happened to me recently.

I was told I wouldn't be retained in my job. No reason was given but it was understood that my boss simply had a friend she knew who was going to take my place.

With a wife and 2 children to support, the news of this was like a punch to my stomach.

Luckily, I was immediately reminded of the story of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Hawthorne is most famous for writing The Scarlet Letter, a novel that continues to be read in schools all over the country.

Hawthorne worked for the government as a surveyor in the 1840s. However, the presidential election of 1848 resulted in him being fired.

Hawthorne was devastated.

So, he went home knowing he had only two choices: kill himself or follow his life-long dream and become a writer. Obviously, he chose to write, wrote The Scarlett Letter, and the rest is history.

Five years later he would remark that his biggest enemies did him the biggest favor.

And so, as I was driving home after being told of my future (or lack there of), I thought of Hawthorne and I decided I would follow my dream as well.

Whether I am as successful as Hawthorne doesn't matter. What does matter is that I will be moving on with my life. I will not allow failure or injustice to affect my life negatively.

I will look back on this failure and realize that not only did it change my life, but it changed my life for the better.