How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
Truthfully, in every mistake I am making and have been making and will make, I am yet to learn. Perhaps, such a cycle of faux-pas will continue until I meet a psychopomp on my final day on earth. Yet, I move on and march forward to whatever my destiny is. I will most likely be making the same mistakes over and over, falling again and again. Yet the resilient spirit is indomitable, and even fate cannot destroy it unless I voluntarily abandon it to the force of darkness. And I think it is this spirit of resistance against a series of failures that strengthens my will to stand on my feet even after the losses, which makes all my attempts all the more sublime in triumph over despair like Santiago uttering, “Man can be destroyed, but cannot be conquered,” in Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea.
A Cat in the Mirror 