Failure occasionally introduces weaknesses before stakes become larger.

Sometimes a failure arrives early, while the stakes are still small, and shows you a weakness that would have been catastrophic later. That timing is not consolation exactly, but it is real: the same flaw discovered at a higher level would have cost far more. Early exposure is a kind of luck disguised as bad luck.

When something breaks, ask whether this weakness would have appeared eventually anyway and what it would have cost then. Fix it now while the price is manageable. Small failures are where the expensive lessons are cheapest.