By Ganiu Bamgbose, PhD
Life often conditions humans in different ways. When such conditioning has taken place, it usually takes mental liberation to see things differently. One of the universal conditioning of humans is the erroneous assumption that failure collocates with other words such as loss, defeat, stagnation, incompetence and so on. Among many other dictionary definitions, failure has been described as lack of success. I do not write this piece to question the veracity of the popular opinion on what failure means, but I write to shed light on the beautiful sides to failure. Can anything ever be beautiful about failure? You may want to find out in the subsequent paragraphs.
One very fascinating thing about failure is that it brings clarity to situations. Many a person sets out in life without sufficient knowledge of what they want or what their Maker wants for them. Failure is often that compass with which they navigate their purpose. A very common example is how young Nigerians aiming for admissions to higher institutions of learning would mostly want just three courses: medicine, law and accounting. These courses are often thought of as the ideal courses for sound students in science, arts and commercial departments respectively. When life happens and young people get “thrown into” other disciplines like microbiology, biochemistry, English, peace studies, industrial relations, insurance and whatnot, they weep, refuse to accept the admission for a while and maybe later grudgingly agree to resume with the agreement to rewrite the entrance examination for their supposedly desired courses. Is it not usually the case that many such students get reminded of the need to sit the entrance examination after some months on campus and they say “Dad/Mum I think I am loving my course”? This is one beautiful side to failure. It is sometimes the unknown route to that destined path.
Moving on, soft skills are not often taught in schools. Soft skills are interpersonal skills such as the ability to communicate well with other people and to work in a team. Failure is often instrumental in the acquisition of these skills many times. I am one lecturer who would not have ever rationalised why a student would graduate with a second class (lower division; 2:2) if it were not what I graduated with. The experience of my 2:2 is my biggest lesson on humility which is a natural feature every human should possess. Many people do not understand the natural concepts of grace and favour until the person they are ten times more competent than gets the job they both apply for. Failure is often our teacher on life courses such as perseverance, determination and doggedness.
Again, failure brings sequence and natural order to life. An unbroken happiness is in itself boring. Life must have ups and downs. There is a time to have in abundance and a time to be broke, a time to win and a time to lose, a time to be well and a time to be sick, a time to live and a time to die. While the other ends of these pairs appear like failure many times, it is often just the natural order of life.
Never will there be a time that accepting failure will be an easy and happy thing to do. However, if we dare not to give up, there is always space at the top. Do not fear when you fail. Remember FEAR could mean Forget Everything And Run or Face Everything And Rise. There is beauty in failure. The Bible corroborates this stance in James 1:2 when it says “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into diverse temptations”. And the Qur’an equally says in Surah Al Imran (3:139), “Do not weaken or grieve –if you are true believers, you have the upper hand”. Failure is one of the experiences that can cause weakness to the mind, but a quitter will not win and a winner will not quit.
May we reap the fruits of our failure!
(c) 2025 Ganiu Bamgbose writes from the Department of English, Lagos State University.
