Even Intelligent People Can Fail
1 The striking thing about the innovators who succeeded in making our
modern world is how often they failed. Turn on a light, take a photograph, watch
TV, search the Web, jet across the Pacific Ocean, talk on a cellphone(手机). The
innovators who left us these things had to find the way to success through a
maze(错综复杂)of wrong turns. 2 We have just celebrated the 125th
anniversary of American innovator Thomas Edison’s success in heating a thin line
to white hot heat for 14 hours in his lab in New Jersey, U. S. He did that on
October 22, 1879, and followed up a month later by keeping a thread of common
cardboard alight (点亮着的) in an airless space for 45 hours. Three years later he
went on to light up half a square mile of down town Manhattan, even though only
one of the six power plants in his design worked when he turned it on, on
September 4, 1882. 3 "Many of life’s failures," the supreme
innovator said, "are people who did not realize bow close they were to success
when they gave up." Before that magical moment in October 1879, Edison had
worked out no fewer than 3, 000 theories about electric light, but in only two
cases did his experiments work. 4 No one likes failure, but the
smart innovators learn from it. Mark Gumz, the head of the camera maker Olympus
America Inc, attributes some of the company’s successes in technology to
understanding failure. His popular phrase is: "You only fail when you
quit." 5 Over two centuries, the most common quality of the
innovators has been persistence. That is another way of saying they bad the
emotional ability to keep up what they were doing. Walt Disney, the founder of
Disneyland, was so broke after a succession of financial failures that he was
left shoeless in his office because he could not afford the U. S. ＄1.50 to get
his shoes from the repair shop. Pioneering ear maker Henry Ford failed with one
company and was forced out of another before he developed the Model T
car. 6 Failure is harder to bear in today’s open, accelerated
world. Hardly any innovation works the first time. But an impatient society and
the media want instant success. When American music and movie master David
Geffen had a difficult time, a critic said nastily that the only difference
between Geffen Records(Geffen’s company)and the Titanic(the ship that went
down)was that the Titanic had better music. Actually, it wasn’t. After four
years of losses, Geffen had so many hits(成功的作品)he could afford a ship as big as
the Titanic all to himself. A. Importance of learning from
failure B. Quality shared by most innovators
C. Edison’s innovation D. Edison’s comment on failure
E. Contributions made by innovators F. Failure is the
mother of success Paragraph 1______