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Amanda Chalfant

Frances McCue

Honors 205 A

9 November 2014

Philosophy Essay Rewrite

In this world, the idea of success is very attractive to people; not necessarily defined

similarly for each individual, society nonetheless views success—in all its various forms—as a

goal in life. Copious amounts of time have been devoted to the thought of success: a basic

definition, how it is reached, and how it corresponds to happiness. A person’s success is largely

based on his/her preparedness to achieve it, and this must start with resilience from a young age.

It is my belief that resilience is a consciously learned trait that is a key part of real-world success.

This essay will explore the way resilience can be formed from failures at an early age and how

its development leads to success and flexibility in later, more high-stakes situations.

Before delving into the premises of this claim, it is necessary to clear up a few vague

terms. This essay deals a lot with the topics of mistakes and failure, which can be interpreted

differently given the context. The idea of failure within this argument is that of a manageable, yet

uncomfortable magnitude to students. Represented by a bad test grade, a low score on a paper, or

a lousy discussion within in a class, these types of failures are meant to act as ‘hiccups’ in the

road during a student’s schooling. Mistakes, as well, are less a sign of complete inadequacy and

more a lapse in knowledge or judgment, like the decision to go out with friends rather than study

one night. The term resilience also necessitates some clarification; for my purposes, resilience is

defined as the ability to become strong or successful again after something bad occurs.
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Resilience cannot be taught explicitly in a class; rather, it comes from the conscious

choice to look past failures and try a new way of solving a problem. With this skill comes the

flexibility and creativity to look past the limitations set. This is key, as so often a student in

school is taught only one single way to look at a problem. To build up resilience, then, it is up to

him/her to decide to try a different method of thinking. When the initial method does not work—

for example, the instructor deemed the student’s thesis ‘weak’—he/she can choose to be

discouraged. Or, if he/she has encountered this type of failure before, he/she has been instilled

with a bit of that creativity to look at the issue in a different way. Again, resilience is

accumulated gradually, ideally starting early in a student’s academic development. That way, as

the failures become slightly bigger over time, our student has become more mature and has been

primed to deal with issues in a constructive way.

Mistakes are another type of failure that can have the potential to help build resilience,

should a person be willing to learn from the initial blunder. While mistakes can be

discouraging—they often make people feel inadequate, like they will never achieve the goal—

they are necessary to learning and the development of resilience. It is an exercise in what does

and does not work for a situation, again creating that flexibility to try out a new tactic for a

situation. People learn from their past blunders; they see where and why the issue happened and

how to bounce back from it in an effective way. For example, people have different study habits

that cater to their individual needs as a learner. I once tried to cram the night before a test: this

was a mistake. Up until three in the morning, I realized that it was impossible for me to

memorize every French verb tense on so little sleep. Yet I emerged from this painful experience

with the knowledge of how to more effectively prepare for exams (or at least how not to

prepare).
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Every instance that a student practices and builds up resilience is vital, because early

development of this trait makes for better adaptability in real-world situations, where the stakes

are higher and more significant. To illustrate this premise, I will compare two people and analyze

their reactions to a situation: a life-changing event—we’ll use a lay-off in a company—affects

two very different people. Person 1 is the type who has not dealt with enough failure to build up

a large capacity of resilience; he is not lazy, per se, but has received decent success in academics

and work life up until this point. He has seen no need to think ‘outside the box’ before; he is then

devastated by this lay-off and is at a loss in coping with the repercussions. On the other hand,

Person 2 has been primed for this type of incident, as she has experienced little failures

throughout her life and made the effort to improve from them. From each flunked test or

challenging professor, she has formed the ability to adapt. She knows that this lay-off is a

shocking event, but she knows how to ask for help, how to seek other avenues, and how to

remain flexible. It is obvious that Person 2 will handle the lay-off in a much more constructive

way than Person 1, and it is due to her previous habits of resilience.

A particular risk to this claim’s reasoning lies in the argument that the stress and

consequences of failure can break a student’s motivation. If one is met with too many problems

on the road to developing resilience, it can be discouraging and detrimental to overall progress

and learning. In a sense, a student may give up in the face of failure and mistakes. Yet this can be

countered; failure is not what causes a student to buckle under pressure, it is a lack of

preparedness and inability to move past the problem.

Preparation is a large part of gaining resilience—start early in life, consciously making

the effort to learn from failures and work back from small missteps. In the ideal scenario, a

student starts early on the path to resilience, starting with bouncing back from smaller incidents,
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so that by the time he/she is in the real world, making more important decisions, he/she is armed

with the flexibility and knowledge to adapt to all manners of situations. That way, very few

problems will be so large as to make him/her give up completely.

Success does not have one single, straight path; rather, it is made up of detours and

missteps, and it is vital to have the ability to bounce back from these. This is where resilience

comes in, because learning from failures—seeing why they occur and how to mitigate their

consequences in the future—is vital to moving through life as a successful individual. One must

work to gain resilience, gradually accumulating experience in handling situations. It does not

come overnight. From failed tests to lost jobs, a person who has been primed to deal with the

negatives will be able to recover from tough situations and find the positives.

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