A LESSON LEARNED FAILURE CAN BE BEST THING FOR THE RECENT GRADUATE.

Byline: Steve Young Local View

AS the June graduation tassels get repositioned from right to left, graduates are being challenged to aggressively take on life and make yourself a success in whatever you try. Well, I'm here to tell you what they won't:

The most important factor of success is failure!

In the least, you must have the willingness to fail. After all, you're going to fail many more times than you are going to succeed, so why not make failure your friend? If you have any plans to be happy in life, you're going to have to.

Alas, most people in a position of authority or superior knowledge have been shown to be, for the most part, dead wrong. Those who can, do; those who can't, become critics. Negative judgments alone do nothing but stilt growth.

That is unless you ignore them, as did Elvis Presley, who was fired from the Grand Ole Opry after only one performance and told by the manager, ``You ain't goin' nowhere, son. Better get y'all job back drivin' a truck.''

Or perhaps, Oprah Winfrey, who didn't let getting fired from her television reporter's job and being told, ``You're not fit for TV,'' keep her from becoming one of the most beloved and successful women in memory.

News legend Walter Cronkite, who failed an early audition in local radio and was told by the station manager that he would never become a radio announcer, went on to become one of America's most recognizable and trusted voices.

All these people share one thing in common. They ignored the ``experts.'' They learned that every triumphant discovery resulted from many unsuccessful experiments; that every home run has been tempered by a multitude of missed swings; that every great script was built on the back of endless rewrites; that every top performer has been humiliated by more than one performance.

Forget the Alaskan wilderness. Forget solar power. Failure is mankind's most neglected resource.

There are others who have been born physically or mentally challenged, or became so through sickness or accident. They may have been told that they were not capable of doing what they had done before; or that they should not even try something for the first time, lest they be disheartened or hurt. Thank God for the likes of Stephen Hawking and Christopher Reeve.

Many whose original thoughts and deeds are deemed too radical or too odd for ``more reasonable'' minds, are not taken seriously. Whether well-intended or absolute evil, the result of these actions has been a society of doom-and-gloomers, those who say, ``I can't'' without ever saying, ``I'll try.'' Even worse, these skeptics will pass on this hapless message to their children and associates. The circle of learned apprehension will grow unless we understand that the circle can be broken.

The objective is to appreciate the fact that our life is a process, a process made up of infinitesimal experiences and moments all fashioning us into who we are today. And if we continue to breathe, our missteps, errors and misunderstandings are absolutely necessary for growth. They are the life lessons that are essential for progress and enrichment. Without them, we would stagnate and wither away.

Why? Because we learn nothing from being perfect. It feels good for the moment, but it doesn't teach us a dang thing. Never did. Never will.

Do babies come out of the womb walking and talking? Not many. Are they criticized for falling down when they begin to walk? I hope not. They are in fact cheered and, with major huggies all around, encouraged to try again. After innumerable tumbles and assorted boo-boos, they're soon up and running everywhere.

Does a baby feel that she should do better or learn faster? No, because a baby has no expectations, except maybe for the anticipated tranquility a well-placed thumb brings. And that, ladies and gentleman, is how it works best.

When did we begin to deem it appropriate that devaluing ourselves by not meeting some quasi-standard was the proper way to live?

You may want to haul off and pound the next person who says, ``What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger,'' but nature handles failure and obstacles ... naturally. We call it evolutionary adaptation.

As organisms (human and otherwise) evolve, the stresses faced by our ancestors have caused our body to change in order to handle environmental needs. In effect, our bodies know how to react to adversity intuitively. It would make sense that our brains and our hearts are equipped to do the same - as long as we choose to get out of the way. Biologically, while pain would seem to be anything but good news, we would never know there was something wrong in our bodies if it weren't for the pain. It's nature's wake-up call.

Life's solutions don't come down the chute, gift-wrapped and ready to be opened any time we decide they should be. We have no idea if the very next effort won't provide us with our success.

So why do we decide to quit before we reach our objective? Why do we let a single failure stop us? If Thomas Edison had quit because coal, carbon and other tested materials didn't ignite his bulb, you might be able to read this only during the day. He stuck with it, each attempt bringing him closer to the discovery that tungsten would do the trick.

But stuff does happen and we sometimes must suffer through our failures, right? Not necessarily.

Any situation stops being a failure as soon as we attempt to learn from it. And we don't even have to actually learn anything. The attempt alone is enough. Once you've taken the action, the constructive process has already begun, and that activity begets more activity. And when you stop or quit, nothing happens.

As you move through life's ups and downs, be aware that not only are we accused of failures, but we can often be the accuser. If you attain a position of authority or power, teacher or coach, parent or friend, employer or supervisor, you must learn to disregard the inclination to chastise, no matter how delicately, no matter how right you think you are. Rather than tear down or humiliate, you can use the same incident to inspire and encourage. The results for you and the rest of humanity can be a windfall of untold good.

So as you move on from the hallowed halls of this column into the hell holes of the real world, I encourage you in the strongest terms to break the circle of compulsory perfection and change your life. Toss your hat into the air, shout loud enough so that every teacher you've ever had hears you:

I'M A FAILURE, I'M PROUD OF IT!

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Drawing:

(color) no caption (Graduate, ACME INC.)