The real wisdom here isn't the platitude that failure teaches—it's the refusal to create a category called "losing" in the first place. Mandela spent 27 years in prison, a span most would call a catastrophic loss, yet he emerged still measuring his life by what he *could do* rather than what had been taken. When a parent watches their child fail a test, they might say "at least you learned something," which lets failure remain failure with a consolation prize attached. But Mandela's framing collapses that distinction entirely: the experience itself *is* the win, because it alters what you're capable of next time. That's not optimism—it's a fundamental redefinition of what counts.