Try, Try Again?

Image Credit: Jon Tyson

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.” -WC Fields

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” This idiom is used to encourage people to persist after failing at something. Don’t give up. Persevere until you succeed.

I’m reminded of an incident when I took this quote to heart as a youngster. Well, I decided to ride my uncle’s forbidden bicycle which was not designed for a girl to ride, especially a 7-year-old by the way, I don’t think this idiom applied to this particular situation. “A hard head makes a soft behind,” my mother echoed repeatedly as she patched up my wound after I fell off of that forbidden bike one day and skinned the crap out of my right knee when I hit the razor-sharp edge of our paved sidewalk. That was more than an “Ouch” moment. It was more like a “Holy shit, what the heck is that white stuff oozing out of my knee?”

I still have that scar as a constant reminder of the pain I felt that day. But that still didn’t deter me from trying again. Yep, I got back on that bike after I thought I broke my kneecap, but gradually mastered how to get off of that boy’s bicycle without busting my head open. Obviously, my mother’s words fell on deaf ears and she knew it, but found it useless to say anything more about it.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” As an adult, this quote was one of many to encourage me to restart, retry, and recreate something I was passionate about that didn’t turn out well from my initial tries.

Many sources say that the first known written record of this proverb is in American educator Thomas H. Palmer’s The Teacher’s Manual (1840): 

‘Tis a lesson you should heed,
Try, try again.
If at first you don’t succeed,
Try, try again.

You can click this free link on Google Play to read a copy of  The Teacher’s Manual, by Thomas H. Palmer, A.M. 

While others say that Edward Hickson later popularized it in his book The Singing Master. But, if sources are correct, The Singing Master was published in 1836, placing it earlier than Palmer’s work.

Still, there were some, according to legend, who say that Robert the Bruce, a 14th-century king, having suffered a major defeat at the hands of the English, went into hiding in a cave near Gretna. It is said that while he was in this cave, he watched a spider try to spin a web. Each time the spider failed, it simply started again. Robert the Bruce was so inspired by the little spider that he left the cave and returned to lead his troops in a series of victories against the English.

Regardless of who has dibs on making this idiom popular, just remember, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again!

Image Credit: CJ