Sample Essay On Failure

Failure is deep. One cannot help feel upended at failure particularly when failure comes reverberates with deeply held values and beliefs. The pain, sorrow and chagrin one experiences last long enough as to imprint failure into memory, probably forever. As one grows up and comes to learn and see more, instances of failure gain further significance or just fade away, depending on how much a failure is integral, so to speak, to one's main purpose in life. Further, failure becomes steeper still once more connected to closer persons, places or events. Inevitably, everyone is subject to failure at some point or another. I remember a failure I experienced in full which was very deep and life course changer.
After graduation, I decided to start a small business. Typically, I hated office work. I was – and still am – a very dynamic character. After all, I belonged to a family of entrepreneurs. Many family members have, at some point or another, decided, to start a personal business. I was no exception.
Choosing a once booming market of professional services, I started doing market research in earnest. After what I believed was an adequate market research, I put a business plan and decided to start right away with funds I was able to provide from jobs I did during college years and small loans from friends, family and acquaintances. (I was not qualified for a bank loan.)
After what was like a bonanza, rather than a serious business opening, I had a business center for four professional services: food catering, undelivered mail follow-up, lawn ornamentation and stray-person pick-up (many persons got lost in surrounding areas while cycling or jogging). Obviously, all four services had nothing to do with each other. Delivery, however, was key in all four services. Although I made deals with local car, bike and motorcycle rentals as main providers of "shipment" services, I should have considered for a very likely events such as natural disasters.
Of course, as a fresh fish, I was still ideal in my business conceptions. Considering for foreseeable risks, I simply went on business without predicting for possible unpredictables. The business went very well at first. The weather was fair by all accounts. I had no competitors, actually. The size and activities of business were just small enough as to fend off big – and real – business. Only one month after opening, and my business was in tatters.

A blizzard!

As if I had never experienced blizzards before, I was standing at my little company's doorway, watching. All orders, I thought, should now be cancelled and compensated. The rental companies, businesses, everything was just closed. That one day loss was massive. Probably, I showed affected optimism, I could make up for a day's loss in another. The blizzard intensified. More cancellations, more compensations. Days passed by and I saw my business crumble before I even got started in real. The business was doomed and I spent next year paying up loans. The collapse was so quick I had to recover over very long period. In fact, I never dared to enter into business. I lost a deep faith in myself as an entrepreneur. After years of saving, very long nights of business plan preparation and extensive networking I lost a business because of a very familiar, natural reason, a blizzard. I was humiliated further still by neighbors and associates who stuck to "Blizzard" as my given name.
If anything, I have come to learn personal experience is not enough. However insightful one is, business requires much more experience, planning and collaboration. Moreover, predictable unpredictables should be considered for even before obvious factors. Taking givens for granted in business is a shortcut to business loss, if not collapse. After many years, I have come to accept, most importantly, loss as part of doing business. However, loss and risk – like gain – should be considered for discreetly.