In failure lies the seed of success
I have earlier touched briefly on the subject of coping with failure. This being the time of the year when results of the Boards, and examinations for entry to professional courses, are announced, I think it is time for a larger discussion. The basic point I wish to get across is that we ought to change our perceptions of failure. Do not view failure as
permanent, it is temporary. Do not call it failure, call it a reverse, or a setback, if you will. Do not think of a reverse negatively, think of it also positively in terms of the lessons it can teach you.
And if you manage to successfully view a failure as a reverse, you will never think of it as an end of the road situation. Instead, you will view it as a bend in the road, which could lead onto broader avenues.
As teenagers, your reverses, at this time of the year at least, are largely of the academic kind. To you — and more importantly to your parents — I would like to pose one question. Think of any topper in any endeavour, be it sports or painting or in business or in politics or in the performing arts. Was that person a topper in studies? The answer, most definitely is a NO. So, if the best are not really academic successes, a reverse can never really be a closed chapter in your career. Let me give you a very concrete example, which sounds incredible, but which can be checked in a jiffy in these days of the internet. Without argument, the greatest scientist of the last century, whose abstruse theories are still being tested, was Albert Einstein. And do you know that he failed in his first attempt at the entrance examination for admission to the famed Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich the age of 16? Yet he landed up with the Nobel Prize…
Similarly, you can search for the legendary story of Robert de Bruce, the legendary King of Scotland, who was inspired by a spider, after failing to dislodge the British from his country in six battles. He succeeded in his seventh attempt.
Reverses may be linked with academics in our competitive milieu, but as we all realise, reverses will occur in every field; in our finances, our occupation, our relationships and many more. It is therefore imperative that we learn to analyse our reverses and never fear them.
Every decision that we take has a 50 per cent chance of success; and an equal chance of failure. Yet we all have to take decisions. So we must accept that the road to success will always be littered with mistakes and reverses. It is the willingness to learn from our reverses that is the critical difference between successful people and the not-so-successful ones.
So do not be terrified of failure, or reverses. Often, as in the cases of Einstein and King Robert, in failure lies the seed of success. Hence, as they say, “Greatness lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
The writer is a renowned film and theatre actor
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