Which is worse, failing or never trying?

If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?

Because you can't always get what you want.

In order to survive you need food, clothing and shelter. These are basic needs, not counting all the added things you want (tvs, computers, games, cars, accessories etc.). In order to get these things, you need money. In order to get money you need to have a good job. In order to get a good job you need to go to university. In order to get into university you need to get good grades in school. You spend most of your life working (in a job you probably don't like) and studying (things that you probably don't find interesting) for the vast majority of your life just so you can get the things that you feel you need to survive. With all that, you don't have time to always do what you want in life and a lot of the time you might not even have the money.

Plus, if you actually consider all the things you want to do and to see and to get out of life, chances are you'll probably only get to do about half of them if you're lucky

Also, it's better to fail than never try

Never trying baby

Depends on the circumstances I guess. If you didn't even try than there's always the not knowing if you could have succeeded. But if you failed, then you failed. Unless you get a do-over, then not trying would totally be worse.

Never trying is worse because you are denying yourself the chance to succeed and you are denying yourself an experience.

This is a tough question for me to answer, I'm inclined to say never trying is worse, but some things you should not try, or there are great risks of trying which could lead to irreversible consequences. For example, attempting a dangerous stunt which might be awesome if successful but if failed, might end up in serious injury or even death.

Never trying of course.
IDEO, one of the awesomest innovative places in the world, has a motto of "Fail faster to succeed sooner."

Originally Posted by Ling

This is a tough question for me to answer, I'm inclined to say never trying is worse, but some things you should not try, or there are great risks of trying which could lead to irreversible consequences. For example, attempting a dangerous stunt which might be awesome if successful but if failed, might end up in serious injury or even death.

This is a good point, but getting injured from trying something potentially dangerous is not necessarily a failure. There are those out there who strongly believe that the injury is well worth the experience.
For example fighting in a war, you can come back injured some more severe than others but still be proud because you defended your country.

Then there are things that shouldn't be tried because trying them WOULD be failing; smoking, drinking, drugs etc. Things that don't come with a possibility of success. So they are an entirely different matter.

great topic baby

Depends...school? Never trying for sure.
Love? Failing.

never trying... :D always go for it :)

I'm with those who say that most of the time it's better to try, but some things we don't want to do for good reason, like jumping off tall buildings for example. Never trying that may even make your life better.

Never trying is worse... unless it's something where really bad stuff happens if you fail. I would rather by rejected by a college than not apply at all, but I wouldn't want to fail at base jumping.