“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” – Robert F. Kennedy
As a kid, my parents would put extra efforts in making my assignments be the best. I simply had to get the A+ and be the best. As I grew up, this habit crept in or more like imbibed into my system. I did every assignment on time, put extra efforts for it to be the best and different. All for the maximum marks and an A+ that doesn’t matter now. I hardly stood first in the class because I never aimed too. I was in the creamy layer though and I loved being different and not fighting for being any rank holder, somehow that did not appeal me although my parents would have loved one. Parents you see.
I participated in every competition that came my way. The participation and winning gave me a thrill that nothing else gave. My first brush with failure started back then. In a drawing competition in the apartment we stayed in Ahmadabad, I drew better than my brother and he won a prize and I did not. I was in class 4 back then and see how well I remember the nitty gritty of the incident. I came home crying and my granny told me that participation was the most important part in a competition.And in every competition, someone has to lose but at the end of the day, all the participants won. I followed that every time later. I participated and losing did not deter me much.
That day’s incident may not seem like a big thing but it changed me. My grades dropped after that. When feedback is in the form of criticism and failure is told to be a bad thing it doesn’t help. I worked harder on my own to improve my grades and it improved and so did my way to see failure. I understood myself and my boundaries much better.
Until failure number 2 happened when I was in my class 12 . I scored 18/100 in Mathematics in a preparatory exam. It shook me. Competitions are a different thing and maths exams were different. I died a million deaths out of shame and I wanted to bury myself because I had let my parents down and I couldn’t tell anyone. But my mom helped me recover from it so quickly. Once it was out and open it was like the injection, just a sting but necessary. Today the world know my score previously known only by 4 people. I am able to tell it out because I have learned from it and failed better, more and not ashamed. Also, I have realized how trivial marks and their importance are in our life.
I realized we are all so afraid to accept failure because we are all programmed like that. You would declare to the world your success but not the failure. You would take the credit if you succeed and pin the blame on someone else if failed. Successful people failed more and were encouraged to do so. And that is where all the problem lies with us. We would go low and take offense instead of learning.
Failure is not about knocking one down. It is about learning something new and doing something better.
Remind yourself that it is okay to fail and it isn’t a bad thing. It is an inevitable need.
This being lesson 5 , you can read the others here:
- Lesson 1: What Self-Love Means To Me
- Lesson 2:Why I Had To Learn To Let Go
- Lesson 3:How I had to Make Peace with NO
- Lesson 4:Why I started practicing gratitude
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High 5 first of all, i too had same incident when i was in cls 5-6 when i practised weeks for writing competition and ultimately my bhai won the competition although, he did very less or you can say no hard work. Till date all tease me for this but am okay with it now. You’re right there failure is what we don’t talk about, we just wired like that and we feel ashamed even confessing to self. I have had many failure moments which i guess i regret too but since i can’t change anything, i just divert my mind and i need to start talking about it, i guess because success is not possible in isolation of failure. Very good post ! Keep writing 🙂
As cliched as it sounds, because it’s an oft used line – Failure is truly an inevitable part of success. It teaches us valuable lessons, which help us sustain and enjoy the success we eventually achieve.
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Oh Ramya.. how beautifully told about your failure.
In my case I have seen many failures being the average boy, also feels ashamed for that moment, but you know what I always emerge strong after each failure because of the motivation I get from it.
I share one story of mine which will always be with me till death. I was pathetic in my first year of MBBS because of wrong guidance by seniors and my euphoria of getting admission in medical colg.
I just passed fortunately because of my friend, and because of that failure I pledge that now I would study the way it should be and than the rest is history.
I always the one of the first one in my colg reading room and last to go home.
So I can say Failures are good, lovable 🙂
All of us fail at one point or the other in our lives but, yes, not many people talk about their failures. And, it looks like as if we are only the failing ones, which is a thought hard to gulp down the throat.
You have said it aptly “Failure is not about knocking one down. It is about learning something new and doing something better.”.
Great topic: since we face these failures from time to time. I believe in looking at the big picture.
Failing in maths seems such a trivial thing now.But yes,way back in school,when success and failure were determined by the number of marks we got,it must have seemed like something colossal.Nice post Ramya!
I totally understand where you’re coming from because I too failed at achieving success at some key exams in my life to end up where I am today. Looking back, I can safely say that all those failures made me who I am today and that is actually a success.
Loved the wonderful way you’ve learnt an important lesson on how short lived success is and how valuable failures are in making our lives more meaningful.
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True..I agree with you once again. You are bringing out bitter truth in all your posts. Even if I keep on telling my girls about this ..still will be showing your post to them 🙂
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Glad to shared your struggle and failure with us. I flunked Maths, was an average student, a laggard in both Primary and secondary schools. I repeated classes and made me feel bad of being dumb. Somehow, I worked hard to clear exams and came out with First class in college. After the flying colors in grads, I dropped out at the Masters’ level. I entered journalism and after initial hiccups, I became a success till the lull happened. I couldn’t accept failure and was always comparing it to my previous success. It led to depression and was tough to make things move. This year was magical and learned that struggle will always be part of life. The moment we accept both success and failure, it makes for smooth sailing.
Proud of Ramya. Nice one where you have taken the big leap of accepting the setbacks and also open up yourself to the world. Keep it up and looking for more posts like this
I am sure you’ve emerged wiser and more mature through your travails. More power to you. Like the famous Hindi poem by Harivanshrai Bachchan says, ‘Koshish karne walon ki haar nahi hoti’!
we are scared, our parents are scared but failure is inevitable. And it is good, unless you fall you wont learn to walk. Once i had got 2 / 50 in an Algebra unit test in Class 8. It of course invited a lot of flak at home but it had also taught me – how embarrassing it is to get 2, if not anything else it made me work hard so that i could evade people laughing at me!
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It is so difficult to accept our failures, and it takes courage to admit it to the rest of the world. These are invaluable words of wisdom Ramya…people say failure is the stepping stone to success when we fall, but it hardly helps. It is acceptance that helps us move forward and try harder.
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Brave post Ramya- it takes guts to admit when one is wrong; failing takes it to another level of fear…
Big hugs and a HI5 to hope you keep these lessons closest to our heart and use them to propel yourself to the zenith that you are truly destined for.
Cheers
So thoughtful post .
And yes it is human nature that we remember all those incidents very well in which we failed, and that failure leads to negativity or positivity.
It is up to us to utilise it and you did it very well 🙂
Maths was a nightmare :p
You story reminds me so much of mine. When I look back now I find it so silly that I used to cry for marks. I was so driven to always be the best that when I got 78% in class XI (the first time I got a score less than 80%) I locked myself in the room and cried my heart out. It was in a way good because now I wasn’t afraid of not meeting my expectation.
All these incidents have helped us grow and mature 🙂
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Failure! true it does teach a lot of things, we were in fact a lucky lot who had the freedom of living our life our way. just look at what the children of nowadays are treated – precious, cocooned and everything tailor made from the beginning. are we doing the right thing?
Another wonderful post,Ramya! At the end of the day what matters the most is how much we learn from our mistakes and failures. We always see failures as the last resort for all our doings and that’s where we hurt ourselves the most. But better late than never! A good lesson to learn in any age. 🙂
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Award winning author J.K. Rowling, on the other hand, embraces failure: “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.” Setbacks and failures are inevitable in life, no one is perfect, and we all fall on hard times at some point or another. But if we live so carefully to avoid failure, we’re also never teaching ourselves how to manage it effectively when we experience it. So when faced with adversity, it often overwhelms us and causes us to give up.We can’t stop obstacles from appearing in life, but we can choose how to handle them. They may block our vision temporarily, but if we persevere then we can discover opportunities that have always been waiting for us on the other side. As we get more efficient with this process, we enable ourselves to see the positive side in even the toughest of situations.
My take on failure is that one should not accept but learn from failure. Failure is not a culdesac but only a detour and one has to start afresh all over again and remember that is the best way to defeat your enemies. Remember nobody ascertains the entrance test rank of a surgeon when asking for a second opinion or whether the pilot of train you are travelling by has secured first or second rank. Finally we are all judged by results. Generally we give up after desparate few attempts but the next chap is successful the very first time because he has walked the path that is well tread by you. Really love your post, real time one.
I had seen my failure in my job for the first time. Because there was a time when I did not have any work knowledge and used to do some work, even after trying many times, I did not know how to do it.
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