I failed….

Just in case any of you was worried reading the title of this blog, don’t worry. I am doing good. The title was only meant to attract your attention.

Anyways, let’s get to what I want to talk about.

Not long ago, a stray kitten ended up in our house. All members of the family and others nearby got in action. Promptly, food and a soft pillow was arranged. The innocent animal, found it’s home in a dark and quiet place. Soon, after familiarizing itself with this strange new setting, it began running around the place trying to climb every possible height and entertained everyone with its stunts. Most of the times it fell, yet kept exploring. Everyone around including me encouraged and enjoyed these slips, conscious of the fact that it is in the learning phase and eventually the kitten will succeed. That’s when a thought popped into my head: ” This is very similar to how human infants are treated. Isn’t it? But eventually, things change…”

Note: Further in the blog, when I refer to “People”, I include myself as well.

Expanding on this thought: “People” around love to see a child trying out new things(learning to walk, speak, etc.) and making mistakes. Reason? Perhaps, all of them know that this is how humans learn the best and move ahead in life. As the child grows, his/her mistakes and failures are often followed by punishments, scolding and humiliation by the same “people”. Everything right from the food you eat, people you hang out with, to the marks you score in examinations is left for validation by “people”. This cycle repeats again and again ,until the person somehow forgets his/ her innate ability to try new things, fail and learn. Why? Is it due to fear of failure? Here’s the interesting part to ponder about. It is not actually the failure in trying something out that keeps a person away from trying, it is the fear of rejection by others after the failure that is the problem. Hence, begins the business of satisfying “people” with what they think is right and shutting yourself in a closed box.

Today, we live in a society that views failure as something bad. Without paying any heed to the fact that major part of any success is failure. Best way to understand this are the ever-rising “Career Conflicts ” at home. Consider an average teenager, who is exposed to the world of internet in a way his/her parents are not. The parents have lived their lives in a certain way, and for them their experience is the best way to deal with life. Fair enough. But when the teenager proposes something unconventional to the parents, parents worry more about their child failing, rather than thinking about him/her succeeding after failing. It is not that the parents don’t trust their child or want to stop him/her from pursuing dreams, it is most likely this dilemma they face: “What if the child fails? What will the society think?”. Now, I don’t blame the parents for this school of thought because that is how they were trained to live in their early days and it is almost impossible to unlearn the things taught in childhood after 35-40 years of life. (Here, both sides should understand that the other person wants the same thing from life, it is just that each one has a different path in mind to reach the destination.)

Social media is another way to understand our perception of failures and mistakes. Question: How real are “people”(including me) on social media? How many “people” actually come out and talk about their failures in daily life?(Barring the “Motivation Gurus” who are masters in creating an illusion of motivation inside us) Here again, what game are we playing? I do not intend to judge anyone here. These are questions best answered by yourself (to yourself and no one else). To make sure that people who I genuinely care about do not hold any false notions about me based upon my social media profiles- I try to schedule a voice call or have a private text conversation or meet them in-person occasionally ( This exposes the actual person that I am to them and helps in forming real and genuine connections)

Coming back to failures, at least for me, they have played a crucial role in shaping my personality. My critical and major learnings in life have not come from the little things that I managed to achieve, instead the plethora of failures I faced have been my greatest teachers. Isn’t this true for you as well? Imagine a community where all of us encouraged discussions on our failures and share our learnings with an open mind and heart, without any hesitation. Won’t this help us become more progressive and happy? Won’t changing our perception towards failures, reduce one reason causing people to face mental health issues? Well, I believe so.

Resumes are meant to show off what you have achieved, rather than what you have learnt. With an attempt to to make the above mentioned community a reality, here I take my first step and present my “FAILURE RESUME:” (it is really long but all important to me nonetheless! )

FAILURE RESUME-RONIT GHIYA

 2002-2007: 
-FAILED ATTEMPT TO STAND.( Hence, started crawling ) 
-FORGOT THE NUMBER "4" WHILE RECITING NUMBERS IN CLASS (Always!) 
-NOT ABLE TO LEARN A POEM TO BE RECITED AT A SCHOOL FUNCTION 
-DEVELOPED FEVER (Intentionally!) 1 HOUR BEFORE A STAGE SHOW AT SCHOOL 
-FAILED TO COMPLETE MY CLASSWORK IN LEGIBLE HANDWRITING 
(I was confident about what I wrote, somehow the teacher did not understand ) 
-FAILED TO NAME MY FAMILY MEMBERS CORRECTLY

​​​ 

2008-2012:
-COLOURED APPLE YELLOW (Test for Admission to Primary School)
-FAILED ADMISSION TEST FOR A PRIMARY SCHOOL
-COULDN'T SOLVE ANYTHING AT FIRST CLASS TEST IN PRIMARY SCHOOL (Additionally, received -5 marks! )
-"TOMMORROW" AND "RECIEVE" - FAVOURATE SPELING MISTAKS!
-DREW AN AMAZINGLY BAD DRAWING AT A DRAWING COMPETITION
-IN 3RD STANDARD, NOT SELECTED FOR THE INTER-CLASS FOOTBALL TEAM
-IN 4TH STANDARD,POOR DECISION MAKING COST MY CLASS TEAM A SEMIFINAL WIN!
-NEVER GOT SELECTED FOR A "SPORTS" EVENT AT SPORTS DAY
-TOO SCARED TO CROSS A NARROW PATH DURING A SCHOOL TREK (All my friends crossed! I had to be picked up and thrown to the other end)
- BAD PERFORMANCE AT THE SWIMMING COMPETITION

2013-2018:
-3RD BALL DUCK AND FIRST BALL MISFIELD DURING MY FIRST PROFESSIONAL CRICKET MATCH
-KNOCKED OUT IN FIRST ROUND OF MY FIRST PROFESSIONAL BADMINTION TOURNAMENT
-NEVER MADE IT TO THE INTER-SCHOOL CHESS TEAM
-RECEIVED NOTHING EXCEPT PARTICIPATION CERTIFICATES FOR 3 CONSECUTIVE YEARS AT KARATE TOURNAMENTS
-BAD PERFORMANCE AT A PROFESSIONAL SHOOTING CAMP
-LOST PREFECT'S ELECTION IN 7TH STANDARD
-MISSED GOVERNMENT SCHOLARSHIP
-SCIENCE PROJECT MADE BY MY TEAM BROKE DOWN IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE FIRST DAY OF A TWO DAY SCIENCE FAIR.
-SECURED LAST PLACE AT A MATHS QUIZ COMPETITION
-SENT BACK FROM AN INTERVIEW STAGE OF SCHOLARSHIP TO GERMANY
-KNOCKED MY TEAM OUT OF A GERMAN QUIZ COMPETITION IN THE FOURTH ROUND (till then we were the best performing team among all)
-FIRST ROUND EXIT FROM A LAW QUIZ
-MESSED UP SOME EXAMS DURING MY 10TH BOARD EXAMINATIONS

2018-2021:
-FUNNY PERFORMANCE AT A NATIONAL LEVEL NEUROSCIENCE COMPETITION
-FIRST ROUND EXIT FROM A GENERAL KNOWLEDGE QUIZ
-POOOR PERFORMANCE AT KYPY EXAM(12/100)
-FAILED CAMPAIGN TO COLLECT DONATIONS FOR PLANTING 5000 TREES(Managed only 199 till the target date)
-FAILED CERTIFICATION EXAM FOR AN ONLINE COURSE
- SUBSTANDARD PERFORMANCE AT A BUSINESS EVENT
-MADE STUPID MISTAKES WHILE HOSTING A COLLEGE EVENT
-GENERATED 00.00 SALES AT MY FIRST STARTUP JOB(Out of almost 100 calls and more than 1 week of work)
-APPLICATION FOR THE SECOND JOB REJECTED
(MORE TO BE APPENDED SOON.)

STOP!!! AND THINK!!! HOW DID YOUR REACTION CHANGE WHEN YOU MOVED FROM MY EARLY FAILURES TO THE RECENT ONES ? MAYBE NOW YOU WOULD GET WHAT I WAS TRYING TO CONVEY EARLIER! REALIZED HOW WE VIEW FAILURES DIFFERENTLY WITH AGE???

That is it! Those were the most valuable occasions in my life till now. As I mentioned earlier, I learnt a lot from each of them. Those lessons will come up in my upcoming blogs. Here, I wanted to take the first step, i.e. acknowledge and accept my failures. I encourage you to do the same as well! But this dream of “Failure-embracing ” society means nothing without your support. I shall be waiting for your views and “FAILURE RESUMES”! Let us discuss and slowly but steadily move towards a more-accepting and inclusive society.

REMEMBER: Your brain has two parts. Left and Right. Left part is trained to think logically, this logic is developed by your experiences and what is fed to you since your birth. However, your Right brain is supposed to be creative and foolish. It does not think in terms of pre-defined logic. Use this to create a new logic for your brain as well as for others!

Next time you are hesitant to try out something new, remind yourself of this:

“A ship is always safe at the shore, but that is not what it is built for.”

-Albert Einstein

With regards to “PEOPLE” – I only have this to say:

REMINDER: Includes me as well.

” CARE FOR them; don’t THINK ABOUT them.”

Do share this with others, if you feel it is worth their time and energy. Write to me at ghiyaronit@gmail.com . Have a nice day!