Failure Happens to the Best People:
By: Freda Savahl
Tags: Failure, Abraham Lincoln, Charlie Brown, Success, Edsel

You can win the battle against failure and achieve brilliant success.

Photo by Caleb Fisher on Unsplash

With a keen interest, I learn about American presidents' lives, failures, and achievements.

Of particular interest, I read about the failure of the tall, slender, quiet boy who never had much of a chance.

He had to work from the age of seven when his family joined the homeless. His mother died two years after that.

As he grew to adulthood, the young man held a series of minor jobs until his twenties, when he got fired as a store clerk. But the idea of operating a store appealed to him.

At age twenty -three, he took out a loan to buy a small business. Unfortunately, the run of bad luck continued; his partner died three years later. Now the young man’s debt was more than double & he knew it would take years to repay it.

He fared no better at relationships. Approaching his thirties, he was still a bachelor. He proposed to one young lady after four years of dating, but she turned him down. It was just another failure; he got used to that.

Twice he ran for Congress, and twice he lost. His credentials were unimpressive.

By the age of thirty-seven, with more than half of his life over, they finally elected him to an office — only to get voted out in due course!

He failed in two separate runs for the Senate.

He failed in a vice-presidential try. No one was more conscious of his legacy of failures.

“I am now the most miserable man living,” he said. “Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell.”

Some would say he did not know when to quit — and most Americans are glad he didn’t.

Because at age fifty-one, Abraham Lincoln became the greatest president of all American presidents.

Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

If there is anything more fascinating than a success story, it is a portrait of failure.

Charles Schulz captured America's hearts with the unforgettable creation of Charlie Brown, who never quite got his toe into the football held before him.

He never earned the love of the little red-head girl. He never made it off the pitcher’s mound in baseball without getting his socks, shoes, cap, and shirt stripped from him by a line drive.

Even Snoopy, his dog could never remember his name, and his best friends called him “Blockhead.”

Charlie Brown once said, “I’m learning to dread one day at a time.” We all know how that feels to walk back to the bench, dragging a baseball bat after the strikeout that loses the game.

We also sympathize with the poor fellow at Coca-Cola, the one who convinced one of the world’s proudest corporations to switch over to “New Coke,” a humiliating misfire.

Some of us remember the Ford car Edsel constructed in 1957, they called it the Car of the Decade, and sure enough, it stood out from the fleet. It had a door that would not close, a hood that would not open, and a horn that would not honk.

Pinterest image Ford Edsel classic American auto -Pin by Linda.

Someone observed that there was no record of anyone ever stealing an Edsel.

We laugh, but we forgive.

We are all failures at one time or another. If you have ever messed up — as most of us have, we are laughing with you, not at you.