From Failure to Light: The Inspiring Lesson Behind Trial and Error

If this article had landed in your hands 140 years ago, you'd be reading it by the light of an oil lamp. Imagine a world before the invention of the lightbulb. It’s hard to fathom how people lived without the electric lights we have today!

The electric bulb was invented by Thomas Edison. It is considered one of the greatest and most important inventions in history. Developing it was no easy task- Edison conducted over 2,000 experiments before arriving at a successful formula for a bulb that could shine for over 1,000 hours before burning out.

Trying to picture what Edison went through on his way to success is almost impossible. He took a variety of materials, arranged each part carefully, connected, glued, reinforced, sealed the bulb in a vacuumed glass to block out oxygen…and then, excitedly, he connected it to the power supply…Boom! The bulb burned out. He tweaked the structure, replaced the materials, tried again…Boom! Again it exploded. This happened not ten times, not 500 times, not even 1,800—but 2,000 times. Unbelievable!

Reporters at the time asked Edison: “How did you not give up? How did you stay motivated through so many failures?”

Edison responded, almost confused by the question: ​“Failed? Not at all! I just found thousands of ways that don’t work. Each failed experiment was a step forward.”

Thomas Edison never saw himself as failing. He was always learning, even from the things that didn’t go his way. He viewed every misstep as progress. That didn’t work…and that didn’t either…ah, not this one too…maybe this time? Each trial brought him closer to his success.

When you learn from mistakes, you're not failing- you are growing wiser. Our natural tendency is to evaluate our abilities based on past successes or failures. If I once failed at something, it must not be for me. If I didn’t succeed, I should quit and try something else.

This is a fundamental mistake. We must draw strength from our past setbacks, recognizing that they don't define our future. The way we acted then is not the way we must act tomorrow.

What changed? A lot. In the past, you had less experience. You didn’t yet know what didn’t work. But now, you have the wisdom. You’ve seen what fails and what doesn’t and your chances of making the same mistake have dropped dramatically. You’re on the verge of success! There is no such thing as failure- only learning, insight, and experience.

“But come on,” you may say, “Why ignore reality? I tried something. It didn’t work. That’s failure, no?” In order to truly say that “there are no failures,” it’s not enough to just throw around slogans.

To turn failure into success, you must act. You must uproot the mindset of failure, and instead choose to learn, apply, change course, rise up, dust yourself off, and move forward with new insight.

When we view life this way, we aren’t denying failures- we're looking them straight in the eye and treating them as life’s greatest teachers. This idea was taught by the great Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel of Slabodka.

The Talmud says: “If you see a Torah scholar who sinned at night, do not question his righteousness in the morning- he has surely repented.” Notice that the Talmud refers to a “Torah scholar” (talmid chacham) rather than just a “wise person (chacham).”

A “wise person” trusts his own intellect. If his path fails, his wisdom collapses with it. But a “Torah scholar” is first and foremost a student. He learns constantly. If he makes a mistake, he learns from it, and growth is inevitable. He surely repents and adopts a better path.

For this reason it says, “Seven times the righteous one falls- and rises again.” Seven times? Don’t we say that repeated sin becomes second nature? How can someone fall so often and still be called “righteous”? 

Because the righteous person learns from every fall. It doesn’t become a habit- it becomes a lesson. He uses the fall to rise. He doesn’t only recover, but he climbs to heights he never knew before. Now he knows what triggers him, where to be cautious, and how to guard himself. In fact, he’s only truly righteous after those falls, because they filled him with the wisdom and experience that protect him moving forward.