Life is like a ‘series’ of successive seasons with ‘episodes’ marked by myriad emotions such as happiness, suspense, grief, anger at the unfairness of it all, momentary joys, small and big wins, and sometimes massive failures. It is said that success is just a happy interval between 2 failures. This underscores the ephemeral nature of the 2 things that impact us most in life: Success and Failures!
Having been a UPSC Aspirant myself who confronted successive failures for several years, I would like to share my evolving perspective on Failures in life.
Failures are your loyal companions – they will be with you no matter how much you hate them. Failure is like a one-sided love story. It’s like a mad lover in one of Shakespeare’s plays – knows that it is hated, but doesn’t want to leave your side. We all face failures at every stage of our existence. Success is like that occasional sweet crush you experience in school, college, temple, metro train, or at a marriage function. The sweet crush who doesn’t even look at you, forget smiling at you – but nonetheless makes your heart light and your existence worthwhile for a moment.
But then there are some legends – who are either lucky or attract lady luck to finally commit to and marry their dream girl (or boy) crush. It all depends on time and timing. Could we have success by our side forever like a permanent partner? But then, why does it feel like only failure likes filling that position often?
Failure is a blip in one’s timeline. Success too is most often an accident. Bad luck and uncertainty, which are very much part of our lives, usually decide whether one is going to fail or succeed. However, there is a way forward to not fail frequently.
Firstly, failure as we experience and witness should be welcomed and considered as our true friend. As stated earlier, even if you hate failure, it’s not going to ‘abandon’ you. It’s going to chase you. The more you try to run away from it, the more you will fail. Therefore, embrace failures – the way you embrace happiness. Accepting an uncertain event like a failure as part of our lives and accommodating it makes us resilient. You will be future-ready for bigger shocks.
Secondly, failure is mostly a mental construct or a mere perception. It’s also a very insignificant event considering the size of the real universe and the events that take place within it. You tend to analyze failure from your own small universe of people around you and you allow their perceptions to influence the prism through which you view failures. In reality, the rest of society doesn’t care about your failure or success. As you are well aware, society and people are dealing with their own set of failures – as failure is a universal friend of humanity. And it’s by failing that humanity has evolved. You and I worry too much about societal perception. Failure doesn’t care and neither does society!
Failing often is actually a better way to gain social mobility. The one who has failed many times cultivates a growth mindset– they are unafraid of experimenting with new ventures, are resilient when faced with setbacks and quickly adapt when their best-laid plans go awry. They flow with life and its events. Failures in life enrich them and make them better lovers, better parents, better citizens, and better human beings.
Thirdly, you sometimes fail because of your thoughts: you either feel like you will fail, or you don’t want to fail, but you are so focused on the idea of failure that it becomes all you think about! It’s the thinking in our head – our overthinking mind that plays dirty tricks. You may have heard of the quote: ‘Where focus goes, energy flows’: therefore focus on the outcomes you wish to manifest and strictly avoid negative thinking. Unburden your mind from the baggage of failures. Allow the mind to be calm and free. A free mind is not only unafraid of failure, but it also invents ways to insulate you from failure. It creates doors of opportunities in the event of failure.
Fourthly, don’t attach your self-worth, or self-esteem to failures. Don’t try to hide your failures. Talk about them openly without a hint of shame or fear of judgment. Some day you will be proud of them. In fact, you will brag about them. Treating failure as a taboo creates unnecessary mental stress. It makes you withdraw from society. Despite experiencing failures, continue to participate in social events. Be social. Be an extrovert. It’s ok for people to probe you about your love affair with failure. Be cool about it. Own it with pride, wear it like a badge of honor. People want to relate to others’ failures, or they want to compare their failures with yours and feel good or bad about themselves. Someone might want to genuinely listen to you and be there for a moment. Don’t seek external validation from anyone! Remember, praise and blame are momentary too- just like the events that elicited them. Just don’t care. Continue to tread forward on your enriching journey of learning and growth.
You are still learning how life can be cruel and rewarding – you must talk to your parents, siblings, friends, mentors, or teachers about your setbacks.
Sharing your grief, or reasons for failures helps you and the one who is listening. How? You get an opportunity to unload the hidden and growing grief and frustration, while the person listening gets to understand and learn from your failures or mistakes. In our society, we should enrich perspectives on taboo topics like failures. The more we talk about failure, the more normal it becomes to deal with this (non-)issue. Humanizing and normalizing failures is essential to create a better society that genuinely cares about others’ well-being. It will also create an understanding society for future generations.
Finally, you must develop thick skin towards both failures and the stigma attached to them. Without developing thick skin it’s difficult to deal with people and society. Sensitive people are the first victims. The competition will bog you down. Criticism will weaken you. But face them strongly. Develop resilience. Become stoic. Practice equanimity.
The best way to develop thick skin is to face failures head-on – again and again. Face criticisms with an open mind. Let people hurl things at you. Use the stones hurled to lay a strong foundation for your future. You can never grow strong by hiding away from all the negative things that life and people have to offer. Let society make you the strongest person you can be.
Become a witness, a viewer who is enjoying the various episodes in the different seasons in this magnum opus that we call ‘Life’! You are the author of your story. You have the creative freedom to draft your story however you wish to: with as many experiments, successes, and failures as your heart desire. After all, would you enjoy watching a movie that has no suspense, heartbreaks, villains, heroes, wins, or failures?
Remember that it is YOUR STORY and it is YOUR CHOICE.
You often root for the hero/good person to win in the end, don’t you?
You are the hero in your story. Root for yourself & never give up!
Script and live the life of your dreams!
