有一位顧客未曾跟任何人約會，並有一段時間沒有回覆我們的電郵。她的顧問Regina因而感到心灰意冷，以電郵跟她說明清楚。數天後，我們終於收到她的回覆。

親愛的Regina：

　　十分感謝你的提點及協助。事實上，我這幾個星期的日程非常緊湊。

　　在3月15日（日），我在醫院當值，由星期日的早上8時半工作至星期一的下午1時正。

　　在3月18日(三)，我需要指導普通科的醫生，這是個重要的活動，事前我有大量功夫需要準備。

　　在3月20日（五），我再度於醫院當值並通宵工作至3月21日（日）。

　　之後，我於3月22日至29日期間休假。3月21日當天忙於執拾行李。我到了內地，由於當地禁止使用Hotmail，故未能查閱電郵。我今天才剛剛抵港。請原諒我遲了回覆。

　　再次感謝。你的意見對我一如既往般重要，我會嘗試盡快回覆你。

Maria

　　表面看來，Maria在處理事情上不分緩急輕重？不過，作為醫生的她並不愚笨，她定必知道踏入四十歲的「關口」後時間不饒人。是甚麼阻礙她前進？不負責任的行為的原因何在？

　　我們遇過很多與Maria類近的個案，深入其中便發現她們的背後隱藏著恐懼－害怕失敗的恐懼。Maria跟很多成功的女士一樣，害怕太努力去嘗試，寄予厚望後卻失敗而回，遺下來的失望教人難以承受。因此，在尋找伴侶的過程中扮作毫不在意，事實上她是為自己舖排一個優雅的「離場」姿態。如果她最後沒有找到伴侶，她假設這個姿態所帶來的傷害較少，因為她可以方便地把責成推卸至她繁忙的工作及緊拙的時間。哦，或者這從來不是我想要的，其實單身亦沒有問題……老實說這種態度並不會減退失望的感覺，她只是在否認而已。諷刺的是這種態度很多時是會為自己預設了必然失敗的結果。

　　上星期我出席了一個在銀行家會所舉辦的講座，講者是電訊業龍頭Cherrypicks的行政總裁Jason Chiu。他是個出色的講者，他分享了一個發生在自己身上、啟發人心的故事，娓娓道來如何處理第一次進軍中國市場失敗所帶來高近2億的損失，他如何撫平傷口，從錯誤中學習，激勵自己，重新振作，嘗試了一次又一次，最後戰勝失敗。

　　我沒有2億可輸，但我也嘗過多次的失敗，多至有些已不自覺忘掉。坦承錯誤最好，毀掉自我最差，但每一次我都會提醒自己失敗並不重要，每個人在某個時段總會犯上一些錯誤。重要的是要振作並再作嘗試，永遠做到最好，或者有一天我會運用他人向我投擲的石頭，成功地建立一些美好又堅固的東西。

　　邱吉爾曾說：「成功是在一次又一次的失敗中跌倒時不損熱誠。」傻瓜也可以沐浴在成功所帶來的榮耀當中，但只有靈魂堅實的人才會擁抱失敗。當我們的祖先說「失敗乃成功之母」的時候，他們當然深明此道。

　　（按：中文內容乃翻譯及撮寫版本）

Embracing Failure

　　A client of ours has not been dating anyone and has not answered any of  our emails for quite a while. Regina, her consultant, was upset and told her off by email. Days later, we finally received a reply from her :

Dear Regina,

　　I appreciate your reminder and your assistance very much. The fact is I had a busy schedule in the last few weeks:

　　On March 15 ( Sun), I was on-call in the hospital and worked from Sun 8:30am till Mon 1pm continuously.

　　On March 18 ( Wed), I had to teach general practitioners which is a major event and I had a lot of preparatory work to do beforehand.

　　On March 20 (Fri), I was on-call again in the hospital and worked overnight till March 21 ( Sat).

　　Then I was on vacation from March 22 to 29. I was busy packing on March 21. I went to China and did not have email access as Hotmail was blocked on the Mainland. I just came back today. Sorry about my late reply.

　　Thanks again. Surely your suggestions are always respected and I will try to respond as soon as possible.

Regards,

Maria

 　　On the surface, Maria doesn’t seem to be getting her priorities right ?  But she is not  stupid, she is a medical doctor ! Surely she must know that already in her forties, time is not exactly on her side. So why was she dragging her feet ?? what was the real reason behind her non responsive behavior ? 

　　We have experienced many similar cases as such, and scratching a little deeper usually reveals the stench of fear - the fear of failure. Maria, like many successful women before her,  is afraid to be trying too hard, nurturing high hopes and then fails in the end, the disappointment will be so unbearable. Therefore by pretending to be completely nonchalant about this spouse seeking exercise, she is in fact trying to pre-program an elegant “exit” for herself. If she fails to find someone in the end, she assumes it will hurt less because she can then conveniently put the blame on too much work and too little time… Oh, perhaps it was never meant to be……  Well, there is nothing wrong with being single anyway…  The truth is, such an attitude doesn’t really soften the blow of disappointment, it only puts her in denial. The added irony is that with such an attitude, absolute failure is almost always definitively pre-programmed.

　　I attended a talk at the Bankers’ Club last week, the speaker was Jason Chiu, CEO of mobile technology giant Cherrypicks Ltd. An excellent speaker, it was inspiring to hear his personal story of how he handled his colossal $200 million total failure during his first attempt in the China market. How he licked his wounds, learned from his mistakes, picked himself up, stood up again, tried again, & again… and finally prevailed.

　　I don’t  have $200 million to lose, but I too have failed more times than I care to remember. It was humbling at best, devastating at worst…but each time I tried to remind myself that failing is not important, everybody fails at something some time. The important thing is to get up and try again, always doing my best… may be one day I will succeed in building something good & solid with the stones people throw at me. 

　　As Churchill once said, “ Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm”. Any fool can bask in the glory of success, it takes a solid soul to embrace failure. When our ancestors said “Failure is the mother of success”, they certainly knew what they were talking about.