Synonyms vs. Antonyms

In elementary school we all learn about synonyms and antonyms and how to recognize them. On the tests we’d be given a word and we’d have to give back a synonym or an antonym. The synonyms were easy, you just had find a word you associate with the one given, there were always options to choose from, but antonyms weren’t always as easy. The answers were black and white, there was only one correct opposite for each word. True and false, bad and good, and success and failure.

Success and failure. When you grow older sometimes you realize that the answers you thought were opposites might not be at all. In the literal sense, if you failed, you didn’t succeed, but in the broader sense, you perhaps found just as much success as you would have, had the outcome been different.

And the old lesson you’ve all been waiting for: with every failure comes a lesson. Yes, cliché, but truly the crux of becoming an entrepreneur. Every entrepreneur that achieved their goals faced failure at some point, but the reasons they achieved their goals were the “successes” they faced during the journey. Yes successes. Every setback was a success because it made them who they are and their passions and goals worthwhile. Even people who didn’t achieve their goals are successful as long as they learn something from their setbacks to achieve some other goal. And who knows, maybe people who did reach their goals took nothing away from the setbacks they encountered along the way, and in the broader sense failed, despite having everything.

Even though opposites imply two ends of a spectrum, just be sure to recognize that opposites may not in fact be that different at all.