The Power of Failure

Title: The Power of Failure
Author: William D. Cohan
Publication: New York Times
Date: November 26^th, 2010
Category: Outside of Class

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            This article from the New York Times describes the economic mistakes that Wall Street has faced continuously over the past years. It mentions how we have this image of Wall Street being so great, therefore praising it through writing about it in books, filming it in movies, and overpaying the people that work there. This excessive praise towards Wall Street has gotten people to wonder why we are still viewing Wall Street with this image even though they have made so many mistakes in the past. Some people say it is in our nature to fail. We’re not perfect, and so we are bound to make mistakes and fail. Nevertheless, it’s what we do with these failures that matter. Nowadays, we have the need to be perfect ever since we are born. I find this to be true in my life. I feel the need to be perfect, because this will allow me to be viewed as an accomplished individual. Because of this need, it’s hard to accept my failures, and deal with it and learn from it. Great leaders of the world state the importance of making failures, and that failures can be the thing that creates an epiphany in one’s life. There is no need for us to be perfect, it is simply a want, an image or reputation we want to have; however, there is a need for us to make failures although we may not want it.

            While reading this article, I began to think about what it meant to be perfect. The idea of being “perfect” is different for everyone is it not? If people are striving to be “perfect” while having different ideas of what being “perfect” is, then how can one know that people will view them as being “perfect”? The same applies to what is to be considered as “failures”. What are failures? Do failures mean different things to different people? If so, is it possible that a person considers something to be a failure while another person does not? If this is true, then why are we so afraid of people judging us from our failures when there is a great possibility that people may not even consider our failures to be failures at all? Who decides what should be considered as “perfect” or “failures”? Who has this authority? Do all people agree with this authority? If so, does this figure have the power to control what should be accepted by the mass (common knowledge)?