I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.   General George S. Patton is as well known for his demeanor as his battle field accumen.  Patton saw that the only failure was to not get up, brush off the dirt, and fight again.   If one wallows in the dismay of failure, and does not actively seek to overcome the obstacles that caused him to stumble, then failure was the choice made.  


In some martial arts, one of the first lesson's to be taught is how to fall.  If the fall is wrong, the pain will follow.  Done right, the response is to be back on your feet, ready to fight again.  The worst part of falling is not the actual action of falling, but the point in time when the ground stops the motion.  Being able to bounce, therefore, has it's benefits.  Think of it, divers are actually falling (typically in a graceful or dramatic fashion).  It is their desire to come to the surface after the dive that makes their fall a success.  After all, if they do not come up for air after the dive, the act of drowning would not be a measurement of success.


In life, we fall all the time, and then get back up to fight again.  It happens all the time.  Kids, when learning to ride a bike, fall over again and again.  The successful rider will get back on that bike, and try again.  Eventually, he will attempt to do greater things; sometimes ending up with broken bones and life-threatening injuries as a result of pushing the envelope of bike riding, but the key was getting up right away after that first fall.


Look at how many marriages dissolve under pressure.  They fail.  Sometimes, it is truly because one of the happy couple is a drunken, rock-throwing, sociopathic escapee from the primordial ooze from which she spawned, but more often the case was the foundation for the marriage was not firmly planted to let it succeed, and both parties bear an equal culpability for the failure.  Yet, those same people can go on in life, find a way to raise their kids apart from one another, and build new, healthy, sustainable marriages that last the remainder of their lives.  


These are simple examples of bouncing.  Learning how to bounce comes form first learning how to fall.  And falling, if it is viewed as an opportunity to learn, is a valuable exercise.