What is the most discouraging thing you've tried that actually ended up succeeding in?

After my mother threw away my 364 pages of notes for my Master's thesis, I had to spend months recompiling the notes. (She put them in the dumpster at 6:30 AM minutes before the trash pickup, then waited with a smile on her face for me to wake up and miss them). I missed the graduation, had an embarrassing conversation with my thesis advisor, stayed in the program and months later, I had new notes to work from and I wrote my thesis, got the degree.