Failure in eyes of society

I am no Kierkegaard or Nietsche or even Socrates, who is here to comment on the failure and success. I am also not here to give you mantras on how to achieve success in life. For google and other social media are flooded with the advice and suggestions. Sometimes you can watch reels for hours on instagram to get dose of such advices. But let me remind you I am not here for the same. 

I am here because I was seriously introspecting on what is success and failure in eyes of the society? Society is a complex phenomenon. Yes, you read it right. I said phenomena. I am trying to understand this from close perspectives. 

Let us start from the beginning. A child was not tall enough to impress upon the society. One lady in the neighbor called his mother, "Is he not tall enough ?" She raised serious questions on his height as though he was a failure. The mother did not say anything, only doubting, whether her child will be a failure in terms of height. 

The child is none other than me. Today is the day when I feel that how stupid they were, who tried to play with the emotions of my mother?! Mentioning humbly that I have good height. I don't take pride in such god gifted things. For God, or almighty, whatever you say, is smarter than society. How stupid I am I to say this? For god created men and women, and they themselves create the society. Societal terms of success: height, color, academics, accumulation of money, marriage partners are their own construct of minds. They are fool and make others fool. Sachin Tendulkar, is a short height man. His success is not measured by his height !!

Let me give you another example. Take academics. Who is more successful in the eyes of society? An IAS officer or a middle-class businessman? Most of you will say that an IAS officer is more successful. Again how you came to this conclusion? Just because he or she lives in a bungalow, with beacon lights following him or her?! Society, no doubt, pays due respect to him because he or she has cracked the most toughest exam in India?! 

But again ask one more thing to yourself: does businessman work less hard than him or her in earning for himself and his family? What are the determinants of success and failure? Are they the outer constructs or inner constructs? If a businessman is happy inside, feels good to earn money, laughs with his family, have dinner in a calm and poise manner with the family members; then he is no less success than an IAS officer. 

An average and hard working student is equally successful provided he follows his heart..Heart knows all the reasons for what it wants to become. Even if he or she is an IAS aspirant, but fails to become one in future, he or she may be failure today in eyes if society, but in his or her own eyes, he or she is success if he or she follows his heart. (Pardon me for multiple he or shes. Just trying to be gender neutral in patriarchal deep psyche)

Comedy is when in societal terms, whoever earns more money or power is successful. A dear friend of mine who is an IIT Delhi alumni, laughs with me when he says, "Where IITians are supposed to work ? If he works in company , then people say, "Ah, you are an IITian , this company is not for you." 

I am marketing officer in Bihar Government , and face this issue today also. 

"Common , how an IITian can work in Bihar. Go to abroad. Do some startups, look he is in New Delhi, Gurgaon, Bangalore."

Society may term this as a failure for an IITian who is working in a state like Bihar. Who knows : who is a failure, who is a success? Deeply resonating with my mother's episode above, I would say, Almighty is smarter than society. 

There are other success and failures in eyes of society: arranged marriages vs love marriages; society may hold one in higher esteem and the other in lower esteem, a corrupt officer vs an honest one; a corrupt may be a success in eyes of society and an honest failure, because society gives too much importance to money rather than values. 

Sometimes all these make me tired, but the readers of this piece of writing should not be. What holds failure in the eyes of society, is truly a success, if you have enough good reasons to be success in your own eyes. I would recommend rather to be  a failure in the eyes of society. Forgive them, for they do not know the reasons of your heart.  

Negativity and Failure

 

Negativity and failure

Negativity breeds upon failures. Once a failure is experienced it creates a false impression in mind that a next failure waits for you in future. This can be a serious trap for anyone. It can create huge discomfort within oneself, anxiety and depression.

One very common example can be a student who is preparing for competitive examinations like IIT JEE entrance tests, NEET, IAS and so on. All such competitive exams give students multiple attempts to succeed, sometimes two, sometimes even more than four as in IAS. Despite this, anything can go wrong even for hardworking and intelligent students. One may fail to qualify even after repeated attempts. 

Then this creates a false impression in mind that you will again fail in subsequent attempts or any such future endeavours. Please avoid to fall in that trap. This fear of failure as is rightly said is gruesome phenomenon.

But it is easier said than done to be positive in such hard circumstances. Even a slight negative comment or provoke from parent, friends can fill you with anxiety. You feel helpless. 

What course of action then can be taken in such circumstances. Motivational articles, movies, videos on YouTube can be a temporary way to fill you with positive thoughts. But still how to be positive for a longer period of time? It can be a valid and potent question to ask. 

I remember I have had multiple such experiences in the past. In Kota, when I was preparing for IIT JEE I slipped by two hundred ranks in internal practice tests conducted by my institute Bansal classes. My batch was downgraded from X2 to X3. It created frustration inside me and sowed seeds of anxiety. But what I realised that I should work harder. 

And then I worked more on my subjects for three months straight. This gave me better results in next batch reshuffling tests and I was upgraded from X3 to X1. 

So, the key is to have self-belief in oneself and to take action for improving the situation. After you have done your role, you just need to wait for the results. They are not under your control, but the action always is. 

For even you face failure after you did your part for improving the situation, it is not bad. Take pride in yourself that you performed the action in improving it. Win or loss is not under our control. Recent incidences of suicides in Kota are alarming. Students must take note of the above mantra. 

Eventually this repeated exercise will nip anxiety, and discomfort in the bud itself when you face similar circumstances in future and gradually you will become stoic.