One must never forget when misfortunes come that it is quite possible they are saving one from something much worse; or that when you make some great mistake, it may very easily serve you better than the best-advised decision. Life is a whole, and luck is a whole, and no part of them can be separated from the rest. - Winston Churchill, My Early Life.
When we’re going through the motions of life – with all of its ups and downs, triumphs and misfortunes – it is hard to take the grand perspective. When you fail at something you really wanted to accomplish, its easy to see what could have been: I could of have had that 4.0, I could of have had a flawless review at work, or I could have been the star of the campus musical.
But its hard to imagine what you would have missed out on if you would have in fact succeeded. Its hard to appreciate it in the moment that some failures are indeed blessings in disguise, freeing us up for other opportunities that make us much happier and successful down the road.
This way of thinking, of course, must not make us sloppy in our failures nor should we relish them. But the quicker we realize and appreciate that some things didn’t work out for a reason, the quicker we are energized to find a much more suitable opportunity for ourselves in the long-run.
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