When I was a young writer, only beginning, something happened that changed my entire life.

I had been obsessed with knowing how folks deal with failures, and I chose to examine it by observing how students grapple with challenging issues. I brought kids one at a time into some space in their college, made them more comfortable, then gave them a set of puzzles to solve. The initial ones were rather simple, but the upcoming ones were tough. As the pupils grunted, perspired, and so forth, I saw their plans and probed exactly what they were feeling and thinking. I expected differences between kids in the way they dealt with the problem, but I found something that I never anticipated.

Confronted with all the puzzles that are hard, one 10-year-old boy pulled his chair up, rubbed his palms together, smacked, his lips and shouted out, "I really like a challenge!" Still another, perspiring away on those puzzles, appeared with a happy expression and stated with power, "You understand, I had been hoping this could be enlightening!" What is wrong with them? I wondered. I thought you dealt with disappointment or you did not deal with failure. I never believed anyone adored failure. Were those alien kids or were they something else?