Dr. Rajesh Bhola
India
Feb 01, 2013
India
Feb 01, 2013
While
facing life’s ambushes we often fail. Nobody escapes unscathed from
failure. Yet all too often we live our lives pretending that we can
avoid failure. Personality grooming sessions always talk at length about how to succeed; have we ever groomed people for facing failure? Our parents dote on us, grandparents spoil us, and teachers will us to succeed; we build an ego that does not accept failure.
We do not know how to deal with things when they do not go our way.
If we compete on a daily basis in life’s seemingly unlimited
opportunities, we have to be ready to lose sometimes. And we have to
find victories, even when we lose. There are things which we learn through failure that can not be learnt through success. We
need to increase our capacity to cope with failure. Success propels us
into another realm of life, whereas failure keeps us close to the
ground reality of life – and gifts us with another saintly quality
called endurance. Through failure, nature builds the quality of
endurance into our lives.
Failure is often a clue to redirect our efforts in a different direction, and to follow a different set of plans. If
a series of failures leads us to open our minds to new knowledge or
information, or gives us the willingness to try different behaviours,
then we have not failed – we have learned how to create different
results. One of the greatest gifts of failure is the knowledge that
failure is never final, unless we choose to give up. Discovering
that we can turn our lives around, choose a different path, or embrace a
new idea at any age, or in any set of circumstances, is liberating for
the soul. It can motivate us to seek the wisdom and experience of others
who have had different experiences, and can provide the momentum we
need to propel us to successes beyond our imagining. There is a
saying that to teach a snake his shape put him in a box. Our failures
can be the box that teaches us our shape, and helps us to ascertain how
our talents, personality and learning ability coalesce to form the
unique creation we are, and help us to fulfill our destiny and purpose.
There
is a story about a young boy who chose to forego his studies, in order
to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz singer. Against his parents’
wishes, he began playing in a jazz band. However, his musical talents
were less than sterling, and soon he realized he was just another
musician, teetering on the brink of unemployment. It was his
colleagues who recognised his talent for money management, and soon
hired him to manage their finances - for a fee. This caused the young
man to rethink his career goals, and changed the course of his life.
This failure’s name is Greenspan, who later rose to become the Chairman
of the US Federal Reserve Bank.
It is not so important on what we go through, but in how we go through it.
We may fail in the task that we have set out to do, but if we respond
to that failure with faith and courage–rather than despair, bitterness,
and depression–we would be successful in the totality of our lives.
We are not finished just because we fail; we are only finished if we give up and quit. We need to pick up the pieces of our failure and, having learned from it, move on. Credit
to the person who is in the arena, face marred by dust and sweat and
blood; who strives valiantly; who errs; who comes short again and again,
but continuously strives; who possesses great enthusiasm; who spends
himself in a worthy cause; who loves fellow men; who values
relationships; who at the best finally knows the triumph of high
achievement, and at the worst, fails while daring. Our failures
highlight our values, and help us to define what is important in our
lives. Our failures may help us choose in what area we would like to
have success, so we can focus our time, effort and energy on that area –
and happily let go of the rest.
At
every Olympics, many athletes face that failure. Of the over 11,000
individuals who participated in the recent Olympics, more than 92% were
left with no medal – fewer than 200 won their competitions, and were
awarded gold medals.
Dr. Rajesh Bhola is President of Spastic Society of Gurgaon and is working for the cause of children with
autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and multiple disabilities
for more than 20 years.
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