Thomas Edison's Success Through Failure

May 21, 2017

Failure happens. It happens all the time, to everyone, and sometimes can have a bad effect on us depending on the way we react to it.

Thomas Edison did not do well in school. One of his teachers said that he was a poor and a lazy student. But this teacher could not have been more wrong. Edison was dyslexic. Later in his life, he lost most of his hearing. But he did not let either of these setbacks stop him from doing great things with his mind. He is widely thought to be one of the smartest people who ever lived.

Edison was born in 1847. He grew up in Ohio and Michigan. Due to his dyslexia, he went to school for just three months. He was mostly schooled at home by his mother. From his mother, Edison learned to love to read. He read all kinds of books. In fact, reading was what helped him to become interested in science.

As a young man, Edison lost all the hearing in his left ear. He lost 80 percent of the hearing in his right ear, too. But he never gave up learning or working hard. At age 16, he made his first invention. It was called the automatic repeater. It helped people to send messages by telegraph.

Edison failed more than 10,000 before he created the light bulb. Many situations looked hopeless and pointless. The average person would have given up on his work. But not him.

Many people told him that he is wasting his time, his faith and confidence were sometimes on the verge of being gone, but he succeeded. Many times.

The fruits of his labor were 1093 patents, including the bulb, the phonograph, the motion picture camera, the printing telegraph apparatus, typewriting machines, telephones and many other things we can’t live without today.

If it wasn’t for him and other great people in the history – leaders, scientists, businessmen, inventors and so on – we wouldn’t have electricity, running water, cars, TV, computers and all the other things that make our life comfortable and easy.

In 1931, Edison passed away at the age of 84. But his work has not been forgotten. He may be best remembered by the words: “Genius is one percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration.” Hard work was what his life was all about.