Have you ever heard the phrase “Failure is not an option”? Many people take it to heart, telling themselves that they cannot fail. Well, while it is cool to say and possibly give a tad more confidence and motivation to succeed when you are on the verge of doing something, it is not something to live by on a day-to-day basis. Why?

            To understand why, first we need to realise its origin. Do you know the origin of the phrase? It originates from the film Apollo13. The full quote is “We’ve never lost an American in space; we’re sure as hell not going to lose one on my watch. Failure is not an option.” In the film, it was said by Gene Kranz who was a mission controller at NASA.

            But actually, the story goes beyond just a sentence in a film. It started off with Jerry Bostick, an FDO flight controller during his interview with Apollo13’s script writers, Al Reinert and Bill Broyles in which he said “… when bad things happened, we just calmly laid out all the options, and failure was not one of them.”

            Now that we know its origin, let’s look into its context. In the film Apollo13, it’s a matter of life or death. The stake is the highest of the high. Kranz statement stated that if they fail, lives will be lost… It’s a point of no return. In another word, failure is the ultimate ending. Gone… Woosh… No longer exist… So as Bostick’s statement. Failure was not one of the options because failure means death and death CANNOT be an option. There are times when failure is not an option and that was one of them.

            Now, how many times in a year can you say that if you fail, it will be an ultimate ending? Not that often is it? Actually, hardly! Your world ain’t gonna crumble if you fail. So let’s use “Failure is not an option” wisely. To motivate, to inspire… but not to believe in it so blindly that it bound you against opportunities.             So let there be failures and let us learn from them.