Bright side: Failure not always bad

Actor Matt Damon says defeat has taught him more.

LOS ANGELES: Actor Matt Damon shared he does not pay attention to failing as he feels it has shaped him more than his successes. The Martian star urged students graduating from the Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts to not worry about being knocked down a peg or two once in a while as it shapes a person’s personality.

Giving the commencement address at the ceremony, Damon said, “You’re going to fail sometimes, and that’s a good thing.” He added, “For all the amazing successes I’ve been lucky to share, few things have shaped me more than the auditions that Ben [Affleck] and I used to do as young actors where we would get on a bus, show up in New York, wait for our turn, cry our hearts out for a scene, and then be told, ‘Okay, thanks.’ Meaning: game over.”



The 45-year-old actor also admitted he has had his own share of bad experiences over the years. “Well, you are that freaking smart! But don’t believe the hype that’s thrown at you. You don’t have all the answers. And you shouldn’t. And that’s fine,” said Damon. “You’re going to have your share of bad ones too. For me, one was playing a character named ‘Edgar Pudwhacker’.”

In his closing lines at the event, Damon stated “I wish I could tell you I’m making that up. But as the great philosopher, Benjamin Affleck, once said, ‘Judge me by how good my good ideas are, not by how bad my bad ideas are’.”

Published in The Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2016.

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