When growing up my parents would always say to me, as long as you give one hundred percent, there is no such thing as failure. I now really believe this statement and it is a philosophy I am trying to install into my own children. This article describes this subject in more detail.

After I left school, I worked in the insurance industry. I decided to take some of the insurance examinations and this eventually led to me becoming a qualified financial advisor. I would always study hard and give it my all, however I did end up having to sit some of the exams more than once because of what they called failure. There were only three options in the results, these were, distinction, pass or fail. I hate this word fail, in their eyes I failed twice, but did I though? I believed that I could not have tried and studied any harder, therefore how dare they call me a failure.

This result of fail is also a very negative and some what cruel mark. I would have liked to know how close I was to passing, was I only short of a couple of marks or quite a few marks? Seeing the word fail tells me nothing. I personally think that everybody should be given a mark, possibly with an A for the best mark, going down to a G for the worst.

A while later I discussed this very subject with a friend of mine. He actually agreed with the points I was making and told me about an argument he had with one of his teachers when he was at school. He had overheard this particular teacher, discussing his sisters previous years examination results, with another teacher. They were being very critical about her, basically saying how badly she had done. My colleague knew how much effort his sister had put in and told the teacher as much, stating that in his eyes she had passed every one of those exams.

Whatever you do in life, as long as you try your best, your can do no more.