Noel Manuel
Nobody has ever succeeded, without having actually failed, because failure is the first step on the flight of stairs leading to the door of success. We are constantly exposed to various situations in our day-to-day life. As students, professionals, bureaucrats, politicians, social workers etc, we strive equally hard to deliver our best in every situation, so that we can emerge successful. But there are times, when, our best and sincere efforts do not really pay off as we may have planned. This is when we begin to feel disillusioned. We feel burnt out and quickly turn our backs on our failures.
We try as quickly to forget what had happened and try to move on with a belief that the grass is always greener on the other side. And in most cases it isn’t. Ignoring failures is more a less like trying to skip the first step and move onto the remaining flight of stairs that lead up to the door of success.
Remember we can get to the top with or without actually experiencing the first step. But for those, who experience the first step, they know and understand the value of success. And those, who generally skip it, can never understand nor retain success for very long.
What is failure? It is the first step that prepares us to handle success in a professional, matured and patient manner.
Failures have to be accepted, understood and reformed. They have to be cured and not ignored as many of us often do in situations that either embarrass or belittle our capabilities and potentials.
We have often seen how a spider effortlessly attempts to spin a web from one end to the other. It constantly fails, till it finally manages to complete the task. But never once during the entire experience does the spider look beyond for a better or easier place to spin the web. The spider knows that more than spinning the web till its completion is to accept, understand and reform failure with every attempt that is failed.
A Chinese proverb that has often been the guiding force in helping me understand the true meaning of failure reads something like this. “The glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time you fall.”
We need to fall because falling gives us the opportunity to rise. The more we fall the more we rise. When our experience to handle our failures increase, our experience to handle our success also develops.
How do some people constantly remain successful in their field of profession? There are many reasons for this. But there is one thing that just can’t go unnoticed when they are reminded of this consistency. It is the art of embracing failure. For it is said that you gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look at failure in the face. And this strength, courage and confidence will drive you on till you finally succeed.
There are instances in life, where we continuously fail in whatever we set out to do. Some people talk about being a constant failure in academics. There are others that talk about being a failure in love. Still others speak about how they miserably fail at job interviews. And then there are domestic issues as well. Marriages that have failed to take off. Parenting that didn’t really reach the top of the stairs. And finally our youth, who come face to face with failures in academics?
No matter which category we belong to or the nature of failure that we may face, there is absolutely no way in which we can afford to turn our back on failures. We have to face it and learn how to cure it.
The moment we turn our back on our failures and begin to look elsewhere for opportunities that we can turn into success, we are destined to be a failure in reality and eternity.
Failure needs a cure and the best cure for failure is to acknowledge, accept, understand and transform.
We all have problems. But can we actually get away from our problems? The answer is an absolute ‘no,’ and this is so because we are the actual cause of our own problems. Professional or personal, we are part of it. Similarly, we can’t actually get away from our failures. The solution for every failure lies within and not beyond us.
I still fondly remember how a friend of mine struggled for nine years before finally immigrating to the West. He failed in countless interviews and any other person would have hardly tolerated his kind of endless wait outside the consulate office, which usually began in the wee hours of the morning. He would go without breakfast and at times would even take leave from work. He failed time and again. While others suggested that he should give up the hope of going abroad, my friend was adamant to keep trying. He was reluctant to cure his failures into success and so he did.
At every juncture of our lives there is failure waiting to embrace us and whether we like it or not we need to meet it face to face. We need to learn how to cure it and not ignore it. For in every failure lies a lesson that will teach us how to get to the top of the stairs and remain there forever.
noelmanuel@rediffmail.com
The writer is the Bureau Chief (Nagaland) of Eastern Panorama (News Magazine of the Northeast), Coordinator of the Northeast Region (Poetry Society of India) and Life Member of the Poetry Society of India, Phonetics Trainer.
