For my friend Maya who is starting college soon, I included these words in her graduation book spoken by Mary Pickford. Pickford was Hollywood’s first millionaire, which she reached in 1916 after only seven years in the industry. She was a star in the silent movie era, and faced great change when Hollywood introduced the ‘talkies’. Her first talking film was a flop. I appreciate these words as I cannot imagine what it must have felt like to have to change instantly after reaching such great success:
If you have made mistakes, even serious ones,
– Mary Pickford 1979
there is always another chance for you.
What we call failure is not the falling down
it is the staying down.
What did Mary do when her entire career had to change? She thought bigger. She is one of the co-founders of United Artists film studio in 1919 and a founder of the American Motion Picture Arts and Sciences…the group that awards the Academy Awards. She had a more than five decade career and changed all our lives by getting up and not staying down.
Failure is a tough road to hoe. It haunts us, humiliates us, even causes all our emotions to gang up on us at a moment’s notice. Just when we think we are over it, some little spark ignites and we are again reminded of our failure. I LOVE how Pickford says that failure is not failing down, it is staying down. Yes, time is needed to recover. Yes, you may need to lick your wounds a bit. And YES, you need to forgive yourself and others for their part in the failure. AND, you need to be able to eventually let it go…which means getting back up!
So next time you are reminded of a past failure, you experience another failure, or you hesitate to try again in case you fail again…remember…failure is only the end of the road if you stay down. No one is perfect, ALL of us fail and hopefully learn from that failure. NEVER, never, never let the result of failure be that you give up and stay down. Have the courage and wisdom to get back up and start again.
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