PhD Journal Of A Ghanaian Woman in Stem

I was recently in the company of a successful scientist. He shared a lot about his journey, the choices he’d made, the turns his career had taken. He talked about many things, but three words stuck with me: enjoy your failures.

After that, I barely heard the rest. The phrase kept ringing in my mind. It was as if a light bulb had switched on, as if the streets of my brain had been repainted, and a band was marching through them, singing those words.

The more I sit with it, the more it moves me. I needed to hear it. Not just as a scientist, but as a person.

I don’t like to think about my failures. I push them to the back of my mind and leave them there. But I’m starting to believe I need to do the opposite. To sit with them, even enjoy them. To fail, and fail again, without growing weary. To remember that I’m learning the whole way through, and that my failures are not the end of the story.

So if you’re wondering whether or not your continued failure is okay, let these words land for you too. Enjoy your failures. From them would come lessons for a better tomorrow.