Speech
Very Good Lives
Author J.K. Rowling’s commencement for the Harvard class of 2008 was a lesson in failure and persistence.
“What I feared most was failure” — J.K. Rowling
Everyone fears failure. But failure is not to be feared. It is to be embraced and accepted, then it is to be overcome. Rowling says that failure is what set her free.
“So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” — J.K. Rowling
Without the failures of her life, she never would have cultivated the mindset and desire to write the Harry Potter series. What a tragedy it would have been for many of us if she had never failed. How different my life would have been from 2003–2009 if…
