Category: Experience

When Is It Useful To Fail?

The saying goes, “I would have rather have tried and failed than to have never tried at all.”  Is this true?  Doesn’t some failure have far too lasting and unwanted consequences?  Still, we would learn or experience very little if we stuck to doing what’s already comfortable to us.  And, trying new things we might fail at for awhile can be enriching and exciting.

So, when is it useful to fail?  What level of failure do you find acceptable?  What are your limits?

Related questions:  How do you define success?  Do we learn more from our successes or failures?  Is it okay to be wrong sometimes?

How Can We Maintain Wonder?

The older you get and the more experiences you have, the easier it is to become jaded. However, a sense of wonder at the marvels of the world help to motivate us, and drive us to learn and appreciate life more.

Related: Listen to an episode of the Intellectual Roundtable Podcast, where Lee and Michael discuss this question: ‘How can we maintain wonder?’ We also discuss another question as well, ‘How do you think others see you?’

So how to resist that creeping sense of boredom or frustration? How can we maintain wonder?

Related questions: What are the pros and cons of experience? What can be learned from children? How do we learn?