Failure is not an option… Or is it?

I was recently talking to a student going into his first year of Engineering at McMaster and it really got me thinking about this topic. Is failure okay? Is it alright to not succeed? If you asked me this question a few years ago, I would have said absolutely not, however, my opinions have changed since then.

The student I was talking to was asking me how I felt about first year and how I got to where I am now and I realized that it hasn’t been a series of all successes that have led me here, there have been a number of failures and downfalls along the way. I think it was a big part of shaping me into the person I am though. For example, I originally wanted to go to university to study jazz performance on guitar. I completed the preliminary audition and was invited to attend an in-person interview and audition in front of a panel of professors from the program. So I attended the interview, played my heart out, told them about who I was and received a rejection letter a few weeks later. This was the first time in my life that I experienced a disappointment of this degree, but it lead me down a different path.

I decided that I would always have music on the side and I should pursue something more practical, something that could let me make a difference, engineering. This road has not been easy either, far from it actually, but this program has pushed me to be a better student and pushed me to learn more about myself and the person I want to be. Engineering has challenged me in numerous ways from course content to time management and even managing personal health while trying to stay in a university program. All of these experiences have taught me to appreciate every opportunity I have to learn and to not be intimidated by challenges which face me and to not be afraid to try something which may not work.

Being at NASA is a slightly different situation, it is not okay to make something which does not work. There are almost never second chances for missions which go awry and there are sometimes human lives at stake. The work that I have been doing thankfully does not have such monumental consequences, but I still find it very helpful to hold myself to the same standard. There have been a couple of times when I was developing my simulation that I felt like my situation was hopeless. I could not figure out how to progress or how to make a work around for a problem in front of me. When I got to one of those points, I would take some time and really think about the problem while reminding myself that giving up was simply not one of the options I had for overcoming the problem. This mindset has helped me to finish my project ahead of schedule and it has been really helpful in this environment. Not letting myself fail helped me here, but failure a few years ago when I was coming to university lead me here.

So is failure an option? I think it depends. There are so many different situations that you will face in life that a blanket yes or no answer simply would not suffice. Should you take a risk and try something new or stick to a proven approach which you know will work? By analyzing the problem in front of you, you can make an informed choice. Don’t be afraid to experiment, but always consider the potential outcomes of the decisions you are making.

Thanks for reading.