the fringe benefits of failure
Statutory Warning: I don't know how much or on what scale I have failed in life till now. It is relative. My truth can never be your truth.
Since my early days of entry into the corridors of school, I have been doing exceptionally well in academics. So it was inevitable that "things" would be expected from me. At that time, like every other teenager, I had no clue what I expected from myself. I was a toddler then in the quest called LIFE. Nonetheless I had this dream of helping underprivileged people, because I always thought that life should be fair with everyone. Everyone should get the chances I got. Or at least made aware of the fact that 'You can choose what you want'. I still feel so.
I failed my teachers, my school, a whole generation of peers and batches of juniors , in the standard 10 board exams (hope you understand the enormity). Now why I failed remains an amusing story, at least for me. We had a very peculiar study pattern back then in schools for standard 10 kids. For us, the geeky lot I mean, they would finish the teaching part by the month of January. The OWLs (matriculation) would be held in March. For 2 months we would sit at home and study and give practice tests. Thus as any smart person can deduce, these 2 months were the most crucial part of the whole 'boards extravaganza'. So for these 2 months, it was 'loads of revisions and hordes-of-people-who-have-come-to-wish-you-the-best' routine. I had never felt so special in life with all the attention. I never realized that the pressure was enormous. One fine morning I had this revelation that it is foolish to even run this rat race. May be this was after one of my elder and wiser cousins told me that 'I am unique and I don't have to prove anything to anyone.' Without realizing the impact of this thought and plainly believing it without understanding, I just gave up studying. Just like that!! If my parents are reading this, then they would now know the actual reason and stop blaming the strict moderators!! I did not mean to hide this from them then or now. It's simply because that they never questioned me. Anyways, I had failed everyone when the results were out. The saving grace was we had all the expected people from my school in good positions. It at least shifted the focus from me. That day kind of changed me. A small part of me grew up like never before. I came to understand that
"I was responsible for my thoughts and actions in every gamut of life."
This still remains the greatest (oh man, it sounds so larger than life!!) failure of my life, as I learned that failure was not a great,big deal. Obviously, I also learned that my scales and my expectations from myself mattered more than anything else. I always had to strive for not failing in my own eyes. Sounds straight out of some motivational book!!
Obviously the expectations never seized. I was expected to bounce back. Incidentally, in the worldly terms "I did". But because of that one not so well performance, I got a chance to become a part of the normal public. I was no longer looked up as someone from an elite group. I had my space and freedom. Earlier, I used to be apprehensive about the outcomes. Now I was a free bird. Doing things my own way and deriving my own learning out of it.
Sometimes I feel weird that how our academic performance becomes a certificate of our abilities. But in my case, it has taught me a lot of things. And I have stopped romanticizing 'this failure' now :)
P.S. Inspiration behind this post. Watch this.