Depression and failure: Edison’s lesson on handling failures.

Feb 11 2010 Published by under Decision, Determination, Inspiration

Today is Thomas Edison’s birthday. He was born 163 years ago and was one of the most prolific inventors in history.

I really like some of his quotes:

‘As a cure for worrying, work is far better than whiskey. I always found that, if I began to worry, the best thing I could do was focus upon doing something useful and then work very hard at it. Soon, I would forget what was troubling me’.

‘If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves…’.

‘The three things that are most essential to achievement are common sense, hard work and stick-to-it-iv-ness….’.

‘Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up’.

I consider Edison my role model in how to handle a failure. He had pretty amazing attitude, patience and perseverance. When he was
designing a working electric light bulb, I believe he had over 3000 attempts that failed. Instead of giving up, he chose to focus on the valuable insight that these failures gave him, made some adjustments and tried again. He understood that failures lead to success.

What a great attitude to adapt to lifting depression! If you try an approach to make you feel alive and vibrant and it failed, acknowledge that it did not work and try something else instead. You will get your ‘light bulb’ eventually. Just keep trying and keep your motivation going.

I would like to leave you with some hope and inspiration from Edison himself:

‘Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward….’

Stay strong, remain hopeful and seek inspiration!

Photo by: 123rf.com

 

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