The Joy of Failure

When I was fourteen, I moved to Canada from Shawnee, Oklahoma.  For those with a limited grasp of geography, there are no real mountains in Oklahoma, and thus, no ski hills.  But my parents convinced me that one of the important opportunities in moving to Canada was the opportunity to learn to ski. 
Their favourite expression was: "If you're not falling down, you're not trying hard enough."  This, of course, was said at the bottom of every ski run, because none of us could get down even the greenest of slopes without some time spent on our bottoms... or, occasionally, our bellies.
But the expression works quite well with coaching, too.  A disturbing number of people today seem to think that the goal of life is to get down the hill without falling (read: without failing).  So they only ski the slopes they have mastered and never move up to the blue squares, or the foreboding black diamonds.  They never try anything at which they might fail. 
But what if we simply threw caution to the wind, and experienced the Joy of Failure as well as the Joy of Success?  A favourite analogy of mine is the heat-seeking missile: it sets out towards its target, veers too far to the left, over-corrects and veers to the right and eventually makes contact. So different than the missile that sits back on its heels, too scared of going in the wrong direction.
What if "failure" and "success" were simply descriptions of information and didn't describe "us" or what we mistakenly believe ourselves to be. What if failing was just another way to get where we are headed; in fact, a faster way, because frankly I know I have learned a lot more from the times I fell down than from the times I gracefully glided, looking good all the way.   In other words, the times I wasn't trying hard enough.