Failure

Handling failure is probably one of the toughest circumstances in life, but do we ever plan for it?

The desire to succeed gives impetus to all faculties of the human existence, bringing out better than the best, leading to out performance. Even while nothing can be done to control the result, it is the faith on our abilities and hope to succeed, which initiates the whole cycle.
Uncertainty is the continuous state of life; still we keep faith in existence, very much echoed in the "going concern" premise in Accounting. While living the day-to-day life, this uncertainty is actually ignored and attempts are made in the direction of the cherished goals believing that things are going to stay and turn out the way we want them to be.

But what happens when things do not turn out the way we dreamt and strived for? Even while there is an all-pervasive realization that "it" may go wrong, do we ever prepare ourselves to face failure?

For some people, the way to manage failure is to keep telling themselves that things would go wrong and secretly hoping that they turn out as desired. Restraining one self from feeling excited or happy about the possibility of a dream coming true. If the things go wrong one would not look ridiculous to one self or anyone else. Rather, one can claim, “see, I knew it wont happen.”

There might be another set of people who reason that preparing ourselves to face failure is equivalent to giving up hope to succeed.

I experience a pattern in chasing my dreams. A dream is born and cherished. Efforts are made to make it a reality. The efforts are honest and sincere and marked with perseverance but it is always difficult to hold on to the suspense of…RESULT.

While talking about this feature, I now got to understand why I cannot handle watching India-Pak cricket match where only few balls are left to decide the fate of the match. The suspense coupled with the desire to win is too much to handle. In contrast, it is relatively comfortable to watch through a match that is extremely lop-sided and the result is predictable. I may quit it in between, but because of boredom, not because excitement is too much to take!

These days I am the source of most of the information and knowledge for my kids. While shouldering the responsibility of grooming them to believe in themselves, I am finding an interesting difference between them with respect to acceptance for failure. My boys are aged 3.5 and 2 years. They both like to play with blocks and construct the tallest structures in the world. If ever the set of blocks they were working on falls on ground, the elder one gets too upset and frustrated resulting in anger and crying at climax while the younger one just echoes an, “oh ho”. Yet another difference is that the frustrated guy picks up the blocks crying all the time and starts over again. On the contrary, the younger one looses interest most of the times.

Possibly, the more you are hooked to your goal, higher is the incapacity to handle failure.

Failure is part of life as much as success is. While the attitude should be to look forward and work for your dreams, there should be an acceptance for failure too, if that happens to be your share. It might be easier said than done, but has the potential to increase the happiness and satisfaction quotient in life:)