FAILURE IS PART OF SUCCESS

One of my students' Facebook status read: 

Its often said that nothing fails like success. But I believe nothing is as permanent as failure. Once it gets inside you, it stays there for quite a long time and in this process it destroys everything.

I am sure many of us, especially when we pass through the age he is passing, tend to feel this way. Many times we don’t share it with others. Once I saw this post I responded quickly (well within 6 hrs):

It depends on the frequency of its occurrence... And one's attitude... Positive people take lesson from that and move forward with caution, care and commitment... Negative people curse it and kill their efforts, enthusiasm and energy. Ultimately choice is with the individual... One must not handover his/her remote to others be it individuals or objects.

It did not just end there. It took me back to my own experiences and interactions. It drove me to the lessons that I learnt all the while. It has been really interesting when I go into nostalgia and count - how many times did I fail. I land up having many more failures than successes, if at all I call it success.

He is not alone. I am sure there are many to whom this feel comes and their coping technique helps them overcome such failure and to come on track with tight shoe laces and the socks up. This spirit is important; it works as fresh fuel to energise and to put efforts in a more focused and better way. Grudging about failure brings negativity and one falls prey to that self in a way that all kinds of perceptions get formed about others, situations, events, happening and objects. On the contrary, when one takes it sportingly and start believing in the fact that all successful people have failed once or more before getting the coveted place and position, one gets the inspiration and moves forward for better tomorrow.

Many times we get into illusionary feeling while looking at the success of others and get lured by the glamour attached. Ironically we fail to look through their hard work, failures, adjustments, and compromises made in the journey. Many times we do not get to see the pain this person hides behind the glory of the crown.

Abdul Kalam, the former president of India used to say – it is more important to read about people who failed rather than reading about people who succeed. Failures teach us much more in volume and experience as compared to what success teaches us. Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it – says Maya Angelou, an American poet who faced lot of ups and down in her journey. A successful Bollywood actor Manoj Bajpayee responds to a question put up before him on how he deals with failures. He says –

If you let failure determine your course of action, you are living in a fool’s paradise. It will suck you in further and you are too good for that. Yes, at such times, the one worry is how to keep the kitchen fires burning, but that too, gets managed somehow by doting one big role. And also I have never increased my needs and that has helped me.

What is common in all successful people is the spirit of not giving up and holding on to the pulls and pressures to keep pursuing the ultimate till it is achieve. Surrendering after failure displays weakness in standing with one’s conviction. I read it somewhere – failure proves that the efforts for attaining success were not put with full determination. FAIL means First Attempt In Learning as Kalam puts it. It builds us from within and prepares us to face the challenge with more rigor. While we learn about our failure, we must ask a question ourselves – Why I failed. One needs to work on that reason in order to overcome failure.

Failure is not final and success is not permanent. For that matter nothing in this world is permanent. We are all travelers without knowing the destination. We are just putting efforts and trying to know what is written on the ticket where destination is mentioned. So why complain about failure. We need to enjoy it more than the success. In 2016 Olympics it was reported through research by psychologists that the players who got bronze were more satisfied and happy than their counterparts who got silver. The failure of losing hit the silver winner and the achievement of getting at least bronze made him/her happier.

So it all depends how we look at failure and how long we allow it to hang on our mind. How long and how deep we allow it to get inside us and to touch which part of our inner soul – the one which is home to the cold and green inside us or the one which houses hot and red. Can we afford to handover our remote to individuals, objects, events and happenings and destroy ourselves or we hold our remote with ourselves and we take the call what we need to do once we feel low. Yes we need to use caution, care and commitment to pursue our dreams and we just can’t afford to compromise on our efforts, energy and enthusiasm.

So it all begins with you – the man in the mirror. Get up, take a deep breath, open the door of possibilities and window of fresh air, respond to the call of opportunity and press the lever and keep moving ahead. Enjoy what you do and be sure only good would happen to you.

Believe me, failure is part of success. Learn to enjoy it.