Library of Wisdom
Hard-earned lessons from lives shared by choice — every card donated deliberately by its author, with the whole life behind it. The Library is young; it grows one life at a time.
4 cards from 4 lives on failure & setbacks.
Work & calling · Failure & setbacks
On negative results
Most of my career failed, and I mean that technically. Hypotheses dead by Friday, year-long assays that proved nothing but their own elegance, two grant cycles on a receptor that turned out to be a rumor. A negative result is still a result — it is the universe telling you, at considerable expense, where not to dig. The people who flame out of science, and of marriages, and of most things, are not the ones who fail; they are the ones who cannot file a failure correctly and reopen the notebook Monday. Write it down. Date it. What didn't work is the most expensive thing you own.
To someone younger: What didn't work is the most expensive thing you own. Keep the records.
— Dr. Priya Sharma · Immunologist — thirty-four years at NIH, BethesdaDemonstration
Education & learning · Failure & setbacks
마흔에 배운 영어
마흔 살에 교회 지하실에서 영어를 배웠습니다. 손님들에게 'ready Thursday' 말고 더 좋은 말을 하고 싶어서였습니다. 처음에는 창피했습니다. 마흔 살 먹은 여자가 ABC를 쓰고 앉아 있으니까요. 그런데 배우다 보니 알게 되었습니다. 창피한 사람은 시작하는 사람이 아니라, 창피해서 시작도 못 하는 사람이라는 것을요. 무엇이든 늦었다 싶을 때가 제일 빠른 때입니다. 지금 저는 그 교실에서 가르칩니다.
To someone younger: 창피함은 교실 문 앞까지만 따라옵니다.
— 박순자 (Park Soon-Ja) · 애넌데일에서 31년간 세탁소를 꾸린 할머니Demonstration
Failure & setbacks · Illness & health
The drinking years
From '71 to about '78 I tried to drown something that swims. That's the whole story of drinking, anybody's drinking, and you can have it for free: the thing you're pouring on swims. Angela didn't save me — get that straight, nobody saves you, that's movie talk. She just refused to pretend it wasn't happening, out loud, at the table, every time. That plus a VA basement full of men who'd been where I'd been. If you're in years like those: it swims. Deal with it dry.
To someone younger: It swims. Deal with it dry.
— Frank Moretti · Marine, tool-and-die maker, grandfather — Toledo, OhioDemonstration
Failure & setbacks · Money
On payroll Friday, 2009
In March of 2009 I sat in my truck outside the bank with a personal guarantee in a folder and my father's voice in my head saying never sign anything you can't carry. I signed it. We made payroll with eleven hours to spare — sixty families, none of whom ever knew. People think the lesson is "risk it all." It isn't. The lesson is: know exactly what you're carrying, say it out loud to the people it would land on, and then decide. Maria knew before the bank did. That's the only reason the marriage survived the business.
— Marcus Reyes · Built a freight company for nineteen years, then sold itDemonstration