The School of Life: On Failure

A guide to the art of failing well—with actionable tips and a gentle approach

This is a hopeful, consoling, gentle book about failure. Our societies talk a lot about success, but the reality is that no one gets through life without failing – in small and usually also in large ways. Sometimes our failures are very obvious, at other times, we feel we have to conceal them out of shame. This book encourages us to accept the role that failure plays for all of us and to feel compassion for ourselves for the messes we can’t help but make as we go through our lives.

Full of actionable tips on how to approach life's inevitable failures from small to large, this is the perfect volume for anyone who has ever gone through a breakup, suffered a career crisis, made enemies, fumbled a project, or wasted their time. (In other words: everyone.)

There is nothing more human than failing—and nothing wiser and more necessary failing well.

• PRAGMATIC ADVICE ON how to be resilient and endure regret, so we can recover and move on from despair and catastrophe.
• WE ARE NOT ALONE explores various examples of real-world failure and reminds us that we are not alone in making mistakes.
• EMPATHETIC AND REAL written from the perspective of those who have failed and survived their failure.
• CHAPTERS INCLUDE How to Deal with the Meanness of the World, What Love Really Is and Why It Matters, Finding Perspective, Fear and Self-Hatred, and Self-Compassion.