Failure, a roll of the dice!

As we enter into the final week of 2017, I have to thank you for your continued support, I had not hoped to cross 7K on readership, so soon, but we did, 7056 to be precise ( till 24th Dec 3:45 PM). It has been a great year for me. Early this month, I sent out emails to randomly selected returning readers/commenters to ask them if there is a specific topic on which they’d like to hear from me. I received 347 responses, studied them to ascertain that roughly 86% people hinted at hearing on “failure”!

I thought a great deal about it .. re-lived most of those moments when I encountered failures and what transpired from each of those events and how life kept changing, sometimes irreversibly. I also got drawn into thinking how would life have been without those moments of failure, for a brief while that thought felt really nice .. and I did get seduced into devoting more to a failure free life but as I scratched the surface a little, I realised that my thinking had quietly shifted from being realistic to wishful, a few hours later, the idea almost appeared unreal to me and then I jogged back to my failures again to gather all that I had learnt from my own falls.

A day and a half with these thought & I got fairly certain, that my life wouldn’t have been what it is today ( could be better, and I’m working towards it) had I not failed. I tried looking at it a little more dispassionately, separating emotions from the core issue or the event. Most of my failures started to make perfect sense, then.

Come to think of it .. life is only a tad better than roll of dices more so because one thing leads to another. If decisions operated in isolation, failure & success wouldn’t have mattered as much, but because life is a series of events one coming after another in a logical and progressive sequence - each event is indeed imp. 

Let’s accept this - Shit happens! 

Don’t you agree? As much as we would despise failing; we all do once in a while, ins’t it? 

Everything counts, from you letting the snooze button win most mornings to you not choosing right things to eat or loosing to your own lazy self and thus missing on your exercise routine. Even in areas which are more formal in nature, lets say an investment tanking or an assignment flopping big time - We’re in a way a sum total of these!

Let’s open it up a little. Failure often times is considered bad, expect for that fact that is not always so. Some failures actually propel us to a progressive future, enables us to make amends and move on with our life just fine and even those which do not really make us into something better at least leave us with a better understanding of who we actually are. 

Both successes and failures start at a decision .. irrespective of the size, impact or even the context, a decision is always the starting point.

I like to think of life as a puzzle and each decision as a block in that massive build up that spreads itself across a stretch as long as a lifetime.The choices that you make lead you in a certain direction, remember nothing is absolute- your wrong could be someone else’s right, our lives are interconnected more interestingly then it may  appears to us. We keep moving forward each day a little irrespective of us failing or succeeding - because that puzzle called life, knows one thing and that is how it would like itself to get concluded. While it may seem like you hold the console but for the most part .. you actually get played.

No one I know has it figured out completely .. nor do I have it completely within my grasp but what I do know is that no one ever walked this earth without failing more than a couple of times, at things, they today are successful at. Failure really is the GPS to success, in ways more than one for those who really desire to succeed. 

Life will never be free of failures .. there will always be victories and losses. All of us will have to not only put up a fight for a seat at the table better yet try work harder to get to the seat at the head of the table. So long as there is life .. there will be struggle and so long as you struggle .. possibilities of meeting failures will be there.

So what you really can and should do is to think of an approach towards dealing with failure. The questions is to work towards a strategy to make these stumbles rare and too far and few in between by being meticulous, sincere, alert and above all careful. 

I wish for you to succeed but if life catches on .. you could make use of these three tips.

1. Quitting too early is uncool: Quitting is easy but not fun. In more than half of the occasions where I have chosen to be persistent, I have succeeded. Even in the face of most strongest opposition and most unfavourable of the circumstances you sometime have to just hang in there. You can’t finish first without being in the ring for longer!
2. Regard for Rejection: We give in, because we face rejection, sometimes even from people who we trust & look up to. Rejections can’t be the reason to give up on anything, what you need to pick up from it is the clues to change, to get better. You need to work your way thru rejections. Our world is not always very warm but it does get kinder to those who handle rejection gracefully. Validation is not as valuable as you may think. It is ok for some to not understand you or your plan as well as you do. Offer a nice smile and move on.
3. Future is not a mere repetition of past. - Everybody commits error, the important thing is to learn from them. Because you’ve failed in the past .. you shouldn’t try in the future is the most unwise advise that you’d ever get. If you care for it .. go for it! Let not failures of past limit your ability to carve a future full of success. You can change the pattern.. if you really want to.

If you ask me .. it is a constant struggle between the below two.

1) Desire to succeed

2) Fear of failure

There will be times when these two mingle into each other and become inseparable, you have to remember - nothing defines you better than your will. Law of averages applies to everything and it will caste its spell on you too, you will stumble, you will fall, you will get knocked down sometimes in the face and hard - it is all part of the procedure.

Fear and failure is part of life, the trick is to recognise it as a fact ; you’ve to give strength to your desire to succeed and in that long journey take a few failures here and there with a grain of salt. Nothing great has ever been achieved overnight. If you wish to succeed be ready to be in the middle and fight it till you knock your opponents down.

You real opponent is “failure” - deal with it. 

Gather yourself & stand again - for it is worth it.

With that I end this.. wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy new year 2018.

Present outshines past or have we taken refuge in problems of the present?

Anniversaries hit a storm of remembrance within us and we suddenly wake up to the reality of the calendar as it flashes an important date with a combination of a new year number and we feel privileged, proud, emotional and sometimes carrying by sparing some moments , some lines to honour the persons/victims either in silence of our thoughts or on the new age outlet - #facebook : #twitter etc.. let me confess I’m no different – it is the same with me as well!

This brings us to the important question – why have we gone ceremonious? Do we no longer feel the importance or the need to keep the characters or events of past alive in our day to day routine? I’m convinced an educated guy would answer it in negative if the response were to be recorded and in affirmative if an he dares to speak his mind under the assurance that the response is not being recorded! That’s the actual state of affair in our 1.2 bn+ strong or should I say crowded nation, while I say this I’m reasonably convinced that an average Indian, like me, by no means sees the actions/dates as unimportant or irrelevant – he is, however, truly confused on matters which he seems to value more than the fact that he has some linkage with the glorious past.

We can’t and shouldn’t ignore the underline cause – it is that we are living in a free country – where freedom of speech is debating its case in the court of law at the hands of people in power who see censorship on internet as valid, in a country where a renowned painter is exiled and forced to die outside his home land, we are a county where a noted literary genius is not allowed to participate in a literary fest – because he wrote a book more than two decades ago, which does not suit the taste buds of a few extremists who know violence and its threats as best tool to regulate the movement of a government , which is headed by an honest , well read Phd, noted economist Prime minister, who leads a collation, which for many is the most corrupt government ever, where election commission takes decision to cover hundreds of elephants casted across a state due for state legislative assembly election over providing blankets to millions who are struggling with cold across the country?

Times are challenging for sure – the growth of industries have declined , share market produces the share of bad losses to many every morning  ,dollar is climbing higher on the ladder of poor rupee every day? We are living in times where job losses , terrorist attacks , corruption are almost daily news feeds – there are sufferings!

Not everything happening around is bad – there are multi million award shows, movies making gross of over 150 crores  - tablets available for at the underside of rupees 3K – a lot is happening – it shouldn’t bother us if a few unfortunate perpetrators of  terror, that our efficient police could lay their hands on, are enjoying the comfort of high security prison and are due to celebrate many more anniversary of massacring innocent Indians, before they are proven guilty in the court of law.

The society does throw us some ray of hope – while a few were forced shut in closed doors of power (Baba Ramdev), others (#Anna and team) managed to pull crowd on streets to fight graft and demand a strong law from the government ,  people slowly got used to no having a law and politicians debated - some masked their arguments under “for” regime some under “against” but both the groups worked towards defeating it in the arena of the parliament and then the session ended – silence ----

What does an Indian do - Work towards correcting these or keep celebrating the past events and icons in whatever little time he gets, after the daily and unending battle that he returns from, to keep the fire in his kitchen ablaze, books on shelf of his children, medicine for his ailing parents?

I’m sure if these questions were posed to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose , he would have also said – attend to these first  - we are there and will remain to give you courage wherever you fall short of it. We remember you Netaji on your 106^th Birthday and thank you for all that you did towards creating a free nation , it is our responsibility now to fight the present day challenges and make this is country a place that the word would work to emulate.

Remembering you always!    

Twitter : (@LKstates) : I particularly miss #Kolkata on #SubhashJayanti when it's #festival like there,every corner of d city would hv Indian flag with his pic!#joy