The fringe benefits of failure

One of the most beautiful speeches I've had the opportunity of knowing was the one delivered by J.K. Rowling to the Harvard graduates at their commencement ceremony. Her speech was quite long but it was so full of wisdom. I couldn't help but be moved while reading her speech. Rowling talked about the fringe benefits of failure, which I can instantly relate to as I've had experienced lots of it in the past, and the importance of imagination. Anyway, I just selected several lines from her speech that made an impact on me. A complete transcript of her speech can be found here.

"... failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."

"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default."

"Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies."

"So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes."