A long quote from JK Rowling's Speech at Harvard Commencement

.....Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria ifyou let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure,a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epicscale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I wasjobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modernBritain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me,and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by everyusual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun.That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there wasgoing to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairytale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for along time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply becausefailure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretendingto myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began todirect all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found thedetermination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, andI was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I hadan old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solidfoundation on which I rebuilt my life.You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life isinevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something,unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived atall – in which case, you fail by default.Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained bypassing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that Icould have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will,and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I hadfriends whose value was truly above rubies.The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacksmeans that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. Youwill never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships,until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a truegift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more tome than any qualification I ever earned.Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-oldself that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not acheck-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV,are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and olderwho confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyondanyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable youto survive its vicissitudes....