Failure is an obstacle everyone faces and most dread. Failing a test, missing a deadline, not getting accepted for a job, underperforming, not making a sports team. As a society, we often see failure as disastrous to success instead of a natural part of life.

It feels disastrous for me, too. Failure is a fear that forever lingers in the back of my mind. Despite getting older and having more experiences, I just can’t seem to shake this fear. This word follows, haunting and pursuing me no matter what I do.

As a student graduating high school next year, failure is a common occurrence for me. Looking back, failure was and still is a frustrating and painful experience. Experiencing failure puts my life on halt, making me feel embarrassed and humiliated, leading to me feeling only self-conscious and ashamed at times and it’s frustrating knowing I failed the first time and have to try again. It’s like it’s embedded into my mind that failure is something to be avoided at all costs, yet I, and society, seem to forget failure is a natural part of life.

Denis Waitley is an American motivational speaker who has been inducted into the International Speaker’s Hall of Fame.

“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end,” Waitley said. “Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”

Adding onto that, not only is failure essential to success but if you haven’t ever failed at anything in life you truly haven’t grown nor learned. If we start to accept failure, failure will help us to gain experience and understand that failure isn’t a setback but is instead an opportunity to help us learn and grow so we can improve.

Just as we have the freedom to fail, we have the freedom to improve and grow. Freedom is the power of being able to do what we want without limitations and restrictions. As we continue to fail, we also continuously learn, grow and improve.

Not only do we forget failure is a natural course in life but that failure also gives us an idea on what doesn’t work and what may work the next time we try again and again, allowing us to learn and grow from the experience. The road to success will always include failure and failure is life’s greatest teacher.