Failure

[Pensacola Tiger]

Marko,

Sorry to hear of your frustrations, but as has been noted, you probably learn more from what didn't work that that which did. At least I find it so.

Rick

[Delbert Ealy]

You've touched on something that few people realize is of central importance to a career in science. Perhaps more than any other ability, a scientist is marked by the ability to deal with failure by either:
1. treating a failure as merely another data point just like any other
2. turning the failure into a success in some way or another
My students always seem to be shocked by the fact that 99% of the time, a lab experiment is met with failure. I often bring the point home by asking them to compare how many people are trying to come up with the cure for (fill in high profile incurable disease) and how many people have succeeded. That's a lot of failure and some devote their entire lives to a cause and essentially never meet anything but failure.

On another note, it's hard not to think of a student's lack of success as a failure on my (the teacher's) part.

I totally agree!

This is the way I learned knife and damascus making. I had a bit of data to start with, and I just went for it.
It was very time consuming learning this way, but the experience helped me a lot when I started to teach.
I often tell people that I have screwed up in almost every way imaginable, and so if you have a problem, let me know.
I have had people come back to me after and give me the details of a specific problem, and its like, Oh yeah I remember doing that, now heres what you should do instead.

[Eamon Burke]

I deal with failure well. And by that, I mean, it never makes me give up.

I have been a pro cook mostly, and failure is simply not an option. If you heat sugar for caramel sauce a SECOND too long, it will burn and taste life charcoal. If you do it too early, it'll taste like syrup. Screwed it up? Start over--cause nobody's paying to eat that.

I also have personality traits that make for a very exacting nature. I deliberate heavily, and prefer to tread overly cautiously than jump into things. That said, when they screw up,
I.
GET.
STEAMED.

I am so pissed off when I ruin something, even when I miss a turn on a highway that I become obsessed, Captain Ahab-style, with fixing it. I will destroy things, and go to the ends of the Earth, I will not eat or sleep until things are fixed. I seriously can't have it. It annoys my wife, but at least she's not married to a half-ass.

I just let it run it's course, focus, and get outta the woods--then I feel normal again. I deal with failures like that by refusing to let them continue to exist! Get more wood, I say! Do it again! It will work, and now you know where there is a weak spot in your technique or materials, you are already better prepared. Mistakes happen, but only once.

[Bill Burke]

today was my third failure on a project that I am working on with Oivind. I have one more idea for this project and the I will totally have to rethink my aproach to this.

[Marko Tsourkan]

Sorry to hear about it Bill. At the same time, it makes me feel a little bit happier about my failures. I guess 'no pain, no gain' applies to knife making (or knife related) too. Good luck with your fourth attempt.

M

[Bill Burke]

I am pretty sure that the next attempt will work but it is going to be a real pain to setup and get ready to weld. My failures were because I wa sseeking an "easier" way to do it than the way that I am sure will work.

[watercrawl]

Isn't that amazing how we do that? Try and take short cuts and they rarely work.

[echerub]

But on the other hand, if we never try to find new ways of doing things, we'll never find new ways of doing things

[oivind_dahle]

But in the end the knife will turn out like no other knife ever made

[tk59]

But in the end the knife will turn out like no other knife ever made

I'm feeling left out here somehow...