What price, failure?

I just read an interesting post over on BlogHer (a site for women bloggers). It's called College Never Prepared Me for Not Using My Degree. I thought this part was especially telling:

College prepared me to succeed. Everyone I've ever known, as a friend or mentor, has told me that I can do anything I want. That if I just try hard enough, I'll be successful. But it doesn't really work that way, does it? I've always been prepared for success. No one sits you down and says, "Sometimes, you're going to try really hard, and you're going to want something more than you've ever wanted anything else in your life, and you're not going to get it. Sometimes, you're going to fail. You're going to fail in small ways, but you're also going to fail in great, big, embarrassingly, heart-breaking messy ways. And it's okay."

This is precisely what is wrong with our children. This girl is part of the first generation to graduate under the "no failure" model. Your team comes in last place - you still get a trophy! You flunked the test - hey, that's a 60%, not an F! Because no one fails anymore! And there are no consequences! Until you get into the real world. And then you're not prepared for it, because you've never experienced it before. I've read a number of those lists and articles about really successful people, and most of them list failure as one of the important turning points for them. But now we've taken that away from our children. It's alright to be an optimist, and to reach for the stars. Really, go for it! But you do need to realize that not everyone makes it. And that's okay.