Our culture often seems determined to abolish failure, not by improving the way we do things but simply by getting better at finding reasons to see defeats as victories. All manner of things that used to be classified as failures are now recast as something else: an E is a low pass grade; a business bankruptcy an invaluable learning opportunity. Our motto has become, “If at first you don’t succeed, try to pretend you have.” So, paradoxically, we have become both intolerant and too tolerant of failure, accepting its manifestations by refusing to acknowledge it for what it is.