Summary Of The Right To Fail By William Zinsser

From the time a child is born to the day that they die, they will be told countless times to dream big. People tell them to reach for the stars and pursue the things that make them happy. Something they do not tell them is how powerful failure can be; how it can alter a person’s perspective on life and the direction they think they need to go with their future. Ever since I was a little girl my life’s goal in the FFA was to become a State FFA Officer. The concept of being able to positively impact someone’s life and promote an industry that I believe in whole-heartedly got my blood pumping. I was not prepared for failure, I only thought about success.

Michael Jordan was cut from the school’s basketball team. Steve Jobs was fired from his own company. Abraham Lincoln lost eight elections. Thomas Edison failed more than ten thousand times when trying to create the light bulb and was told by his teachers he was “too stupid to learn anything” and  JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series got rejected from twelve major publishers. Failure did not stop these people to become successful and reach their full potential. They were all once just ordinary people who saw failure as a true path to success.

Everybody makes mistakes. Failure can be a motivation, for it drives you to have a bigger passion for your desired goal. Success and failure have a relationship in which you can learn from your mistakes but later succeed.

When I look at the word failure I didn’t see success. But that slowly changed as I read the book What the Best College Students Do by Ken Bain Chapter four. Bain, for me and I’m sure many other, have changed our view point on failure being a bad thing. He instead expressed failure as an “opportunity to learn something.” (121) As infants we grow and develop, we learn to walk by falling down a couple hundred times, and we learn to speak by babbling. By trying to walk, and trying to talk, we may fail at first. As an infant, you cannot give up when you are face to face with failure. You must get up and try again to learn. In the book, What the Best College Students Do by Ken Bain he uses people’s experiences and research to explain why failure is an opportunity to learn something new, rather than seeing failure as something bad. He asserts “people who become highly creative and productive learn to acknowledge failures, even to embrace them, and to explore and learn from them.” (100) Failure is important. If we did not get up and try again as infants, we would not be where we are today.

The short story, The Right to Fail by William Zinsser, explains how it is acceptable to fail and learn from one's mistakes and to not go down the path society has made socially acceptable. Zinner has a positive outlook on the concept of failing, he explains, “Success can be dangerous- you feel you know it all. I’ve learned a  great deal from my failures.” As life goes on, everyone may not succeed the same way or even succeed at everything they attempt to do, but it is important to learn from mistakes and continue moving forward and to find the path that works for you. Trying new things and failing or succeeding can open new doors to something better.

In addition, the willingness to learn through failure can help to reach the desired destiny. Nearly everybody fears failing, because it has been associated with all sorts of negativity. Although an optimistic look on the other side of tripping or falling down in life can make someone to be successful in

Senior year is where students face many real life, difficult decisions, staying up and being out late, becoming extremely tired and much less motivated than the average student. Unmotivated and tired seniors are given their very own term: senioritis. In a high school survey in North Carolina, 78% of the school's seniors say they believe they have senioritis and struggle with focusing and staying motivated (Omniscient). Senioritis is a growing mental illness that high school seniors face. More and more high schools are recognizing that students are not doing as well as they

Think about being a senior with only months left before graduation. Think about not wanting to go to class, about wanting to skip all things resembling homework, and daydreaming of what your future holds. What makes a senior fall victim to this crippling disease that includes symptoms such as laziness, lack of studying, repeated absences, and the over excessive wearing of track pants. This is known as senioritis and the only known cure is an antidote called graduation.

In the story “The Right to Fail”, author William Zinsser, speaks about the necessity of failing in order to succeed. He argues about America is not granting its citizens the right to fail, someone who stays at home is more of a failure than the dropout kid, success can be dangerous, finally the younger generation understand failure better. Zinsser uses Thomas P.F Hoving and Fred Zinnemann who both became successful people to support his argument.

A couple years ago in Lebanon, high school procrastination and very bad disorganization nearly cost me my high school diploma. I was never late to a class, but I never did anything when I was in class. My first two years into high school is when I was at my worst. Whenever I would start succeeding in class, I would just skip school until I started to fail again. When I did return, I would ask for all the work that was missed. I would wait until the very last minute that it was all due at the end of the quarter to turn anything in. It was at its worst in math class. Every assignment that was ever assigned I would not do until the very last minute it was all due Being naturally very disorganized as a kid, losing or forgetting work was very easy

Many people say failure is not an option. I believe that`s unrealistic. Everyone fails at some point and some even learn from that which leads to success. Over my lifetime, I have experienced many types of failures, from failing levels on a video game, to even failing some classes. My junior year in high school I found out there was a possibility I wouldn't graduate. It affected me badly, and I began to realize that I had to pull myself together and stay focused.

This also taught me that it is acceptable to fail, as long as you focus on succeeding the next time. Demonstrated by my later passing grade, I changed my study habits to focus on getting a better grade, and I got the result I was hoping for. Hard work and determination led me to be able to say that I did it; that I

The word senioritis is a term with a rather particular definition. According to the dictionary, senioritis is defined as “a supposed affliction of students in their final year of high school or college, characterized by a decline in motivation or performance.” More explicitly, senioritis can also be defined as “a crippling disease that strikes high school seniors.” The objective of senioritis is to maintain appropriate grades while doing the least amount of work feasible while maximizing the amount of entertainment, yet avoiding the fear and anxiety brought about by the coming adaptions in one’s existence.

When I was fourteen, I started to attend a speech and debate club. It took a lot of hard work, in order to prepare for the tournaments. I remember that there would be weeks leading up to the tournaments that I would only get 18 hours of sleep a week, in order to have all of my research done. (Just a note that I did not procrastinate on my work) Many people in my club noticed how well I prepared for the tournaments; however they saw me perform horridly at the tournaments, mostly due to my lack of understanding. After my first year

In her essay, “In Praise of the ‘F’ Word” Mary Sherry argues that failure should be used as a teaching tool in schools. Many people today view failing students as a bad thing to do, when in reality failure can motivate students to do well and teach kids that they can’t slide by in life. This is why failing students’ needs to be reevaluated and turned into an affirmative teaching strategy. As children grow older they become more exposed to failure. By implementing failure as a teaching tool, children will not have such a rude awakening when it is time for them to grow up. This is why teachers need to use failure as an affirmative teaching strategy because the current school systems are failing in educating students and because of its many benefits.