People still can learn something from these failed products. CFP
Everyone fails from time to time. We try to learn from our mistakes and move on, leaving them behind. But one museum is doing quite the opposite. It’s a showcase for failures, both famous and forgotten.
每个人都会不时遭遇失败。我们会吸取教训，放下失败，继续前行。但有座博物馆却恰恰相反 —— 它展示了那些被世人熟知和遗忘的失败经历。
Inspired by the Museum of Broken Relationships in Croatia, Samuel West, a psychologist from Sweden, decided to make our silly mistakes public. He founded the Museum of Failure in 2017. Now the museum is hitting the road, with a traveling exhibition in Shanghai from Jan 18 to March 17. The Museum will display over 100 “failed” products from big-name companies such as Nokia, Apple and Coca-Cola.
来自瑞典的心理学家塞缪尔·韦斯特受到位于克罗地亚的“失恋博物馆”启发，决定公开展出人们所犯的愚蠢错误。他于2017年创立了“失败博物馆”。如今该博物馆展开了巡展，并于1月18日-3月17日期间在上海展出。博物馆展出了100多件大牌公司的“失败”之作，如诺基亚、苹果和可口可乐等。
“I really hope you see that these mega-brands that everybody respects, they screw up too,” West told The New York Times. “I hope that makes you feel less apprehensive about learning something new.”
“我真的很希望大家能看到，这些备受人们仰慕的大品牌，也会把事情弄得一团糟，”韦斯特在接受《纽约时报》采访时表示。“我希望这能让大家在学习新东西时，不会那么惴惴不安。”
West’s opinion isn’t new. The famed German-American physicist Albert Einstein once said, “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” This idea has even been embraced by big companies in the US. Silicon Valley, for example, is the home of some of the world’s most innovative tech companies. A common slogan is, “Fail fast, fail often.”
韦斯特的观点早已有之。著名的美籍德裔物理学家阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦曾说，“不曾犯过错的人，说明他从未尝试过新的事物。”这一观点被美国一众大公司所接纳。比如，硅谷集中了一些全球最具创新力的科技公司。在硅谷圈内有句口号：“快速失败，经常失败。”
However, there are reasons for this. “The best companies are those that encourage failure, embrace out-of-the-box thinking, and allow employees to make mistakes and see what happens,” wrote Simon Casuto of Forbes.
而这么做也有其道理。“最好的公司会鼓励失败，接受创造性思维，并允许员工们犯错，了解犯错的后果，”来自《福布斯》杂志的西蒙·卡苏托写道。
But some people are skeptical of this so-called “culture of failure”. They are worried that if failure becomes “a badge of honor”, as Wired magazine put it, it may even be seen as “uncool” when someone tries to reduce the risk of failure. This may lead to carelessness and lack of effort.
但一些人也对这所谓的“失败文化”存疑。他们担心失败会成为“一枚荣誉奖章”，正如《连线》杂志所言，人们试图降低失败风险的做法甚至会被视为“一点都不酷”。这或许会导致人们粗心大意，不思进取。
“Sometimes people hide behind [failure], when they could have prevented it,” wrote Anna Isaac of The Telegraph.
“有时候就算能够避免失败，人们也会将失败作为托词，”《每日电讯报》的安娜·艾萨克写道。
So it’s important that you set apart the two kinds of failure – the kind that shows laziness or incompetence, and the kind that takes you forward. The key is whether you’ve learned something from your mistakes.
因此，能够区分两种失败对于人们而言至关重要 —— 一种体现了懒惰与不足，另一种则激励你前进。而关键之处就在于，你是否从失败中有所收获。
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