As I reach my thirties, I feel that chances of climbing up the social ladders are very slim. I know luck still plays a role, but it feels too distant to feel tangible. I am also skeptical about the passion or grit, because the simple act of trying is no longer granted as freely as before.

A few years ago, a colleague told me that her daughter dropped out of high school. The news took me off guard because the colleague was one of the smartest person I’ve met. Apparently, her daughter slipped few exams and decided to drop out so she would not have to face being the second-tier in class. What is the point of trying if I can’t succeed, she said.

My initial advice was to tell her to go back to school since she was so young, and attending school is the safest path to success. However, I couldn’t because the story resonated with me. If the purpose of her life was to become the top, it would be pretty much lying to tell her that going back to school will solve the problem.

However, are “unsuccessful” periods of her life (or my life) really wasted? I think we equally earn something new by climbing the trails of “failure.” Through failure, we can finally see the other side of life mountain. I’ve noticed that I’m far more at ease with success followed by many failures than the success with no story. If I hadn’t failed many times, I wouldn’t know how to face the next fall. If I hadn’t lived through the low periods of my life, I might be too afraid to try anything different because that could jeopardize my ever-so-fragile “success”.

My colleague’s daughter is now climbing from a different side of the mountain, and so am I. Maybe so are countless others who once “failed” to reach the top. Whatever choices we made in the past, and whatever choices we take in the future, we’re simply climbing from different sides of the life mountain. We were never truly failing, but only climbing from one side to another.

So let’s not give up.