Success or Failure! Everybody’s life can be divided into these two phases. Life today has no “in betweens”. Either you are successful in life or if you are not successful then you must be a failure. Gone are the days when people would be happy to lead a stable, normal life in/as a middle class family. Today we measure everything. And in a measurement, the parameters are set – either Black or White. Grey areas are simply overlooked or rather are non-entities. And as I say, either we are successful or else we must be failures. For most of us the choice is pretty clear – success is what matters and we will do everything possible to achieve that elusive “Success”.
Now, why are we so crazy for success? Why is it that people who are successful are always looked up to? Why is Failure such a stigma? After all every GOOD has an EVIL to support. There can be no Success without a failure – isn’t it? Those who have not faced failures will never enjoy the so-called Success. And once you taste that elusive Success – you inevitably remember the period of failure with a lot of pride. Even then - when you are not successful (read it as Failure) you end up being a mental wreck. In those periods of failure you try too hard to achieve your goal and since none of them work, you end up feeling both mentally and psychologically down. You not only ruin yourself – you also leave a wrong/sad impact on your family and friends. Your lack of confidence in your own self in these times of failure makes people around you nervous. You – by being a nervous wreck lose opportunities that come your way – simply because you are too pre-occupied by your self-indulgent trauma. These opportunities would/may have been the route towards that alluding goal of success and since you inevitably miss those or fear to grab those opportunities – you end up prolonging the so-called unsuccessful rein. The quote of William Shakespeare is quite relevant here – “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good that we oft may win, by fearing to attempt”. We tend to forget that it is we and only we who can bring ourselves back on track and hence we should be more on alert than succumb to the unreliable fate. And as Bernard Shaw says – “When I was young I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures, so I did ten times more work”. That is precisely the way to deal with this period of failure.
In any case – why do we fear failure? Success is meant to bring happiness. Agreed. But why be sad when you are not? All Good things follow the Evil ones. That is what we are taught and that is precisely what happens in almost all the cases. Yes, all the cases – except the ones in which the person is not ready to identify the opportunity. So, when we know that Good times shall come, why do we get scared of the bad times? Bad times (read again as the period of Failure) will not last long – not unless you really sleep through it. Not unless you are not willing to take your chances that are on offer. Not unless you build a wall of resistance around you which will stop the current of opportunities to come near you. The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious. And you have to be at your best to trap these possibilities
Friends, Times of failure are the ones to be treated with utmost care. These are the times when you should double up and be at your best. And as my Dad keeps telling me during my bad times – Bad times are the times when you should be happier – since you have a hope. You have a hope of achieving success and a hope of better times to come. So why fear? Though it is a bit difficult to be happy at such times. But he does have a point. Hope is the companion of power and the mother of success, for those of us who hope strongest have within us the gift of miracles. Again, Success is not the key to happiness. It is happiness that is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. In fact if you have ever happened to notice – it is the Good times or the successful period of one’s life that he/she is more scared. Scared of losing everything with that one wrong move that would destroy everything you have achieved. Ask any successful movie star or a rock star and you will know what I mean. They are scared of losing their popularity and success. And I contend that it is because they have not enjoyed their times of failure. They are scared of going back into the period of Failure. I find this simply amazing. I mean, look at it this way – We are scared for our present and our future in the period of Failure, and when we are successful, we still are scared to hell about doing something wrong which may bring back the same period of failure. Do we ever come out of this fear psychosis? Well I say in most of the cases – No.
Failures are as much a part of our lives as success. Behind every successful man there's a lot of unsuccessful years. You will, and dare I say you should, fail once in a while. The one who has not tasted failure cannot enjoy success. Unless you know how black color looks, how will you differentiate between Black and White? Unless you know what is darkness – how will you define Daylight? Unless you know Bad times or failure, how will you know the difference between Bad and Good times or, in this context – between a failure and a success?
I wish you could see the things in a different perspective for a change.
There is no point in getting scared or living in fear in any of these phases. As said earlier you never tend to come out of that Fear psychosis – neither in times of Failure nor in times of success. You have to decide for yourself whether you really want to live this life of subversion (?) – Subversion from your own in-built fear. Life is short dear friends. We make it look big by spending every moment of it in a kind of fear. Stop fearing. In fact I would say – Be a bit more careless about things around you. Why not? It will not hurt. It is fun to be careless at times. Life is not such a serious journey friends. We don’t have to make mountain of moles. Success or Failure – we are going to leave everything behind when we take that final bow from this life. So why live in fear?
All I say is – try to enjoy the period of Failure. Employ whatever method suits you. But just be your self. Remember – when getting whipped is inevitable – well as they say – Try and enjoy it. Sick saying (?) – Yes – but philosophically it’s the best way of looking at it. A period of Failure is just a passing phase. Keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final. So don’t bother too much? Failures are not to be scared of. Though they are not welcome, there is something in failure that has its own charm. Your true character comes through when you are in this phase. This is the phase in which you can try different things. Things that you would definitely not try in the Good times, in the fear of doing something wrong and losing the initiative. You can be adventurous and you can be enterprising or as my Dad says you (can) be happy – happy in the hope for the good times to come. Losing is not bad – provided we show some grace in losing. Remember we can win by losing provided we try to enjoy the period of such failures.
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is for you.
Think about it.
Mantosh Singh..
15th June 2006'
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