In the Old Testament of Bible (Ecclesiastes 3:1) there is an interesting section on life. It says - To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun; a time to be born and a time to die; a time to love and a time to hate. But there is never a time to QUIT.
From the age of three life begins in a play school where toddlers enter the world of formal education holding the index finger of their parents. That is when the “grind” begins. Through the years we move from one class to another through a myriad set of teaching sessions, projects, assignments and of course tests. It is these tests which decide whether we get promoted to the next grade or not. Over a period of time many students start becoming serious about how much they score and how well they perform in their class. The benchmark becomes the total marks scored vis-à-vis their counterparts. Nothing else really matters. This sense of so-called rat race or “annihilating competitiveness” is further fed by the ambitions of their parents who overtly or covertly make it felt that if they fail then that is doomsday!
Failure is a difficult affair to handle. Whether it is failure in tests, job, and relationships or in life itself; it is one of the toughest things to overcome. TOUGHEST but not impossible. What we need to do is to try and see beyond the immediate failure. In a battle a soldier has two options – go down fighting or retreat and come back another day stronger and wiser. Many parents might disagree with my thought but I request them to sit back and ponder – what is more important – a healthy child with some amount of failure and uncharted future or no child at all! No amount of remorse or propitiation brings back the dead.
It is that time of the year again when many youngsters will be appearing for their board exams across the nation; an exam to test their skills and knowledge. Tests whose outcome decides the future of many and sometimes become the sheer deciding factor of ones existence.
It is sad to note that young children these days are living under tremendous pressure to perform and excel. There is frequent news of students committing suicide. Believe me no failure necessitates death.
Today there are lots of options in life. We need to look around for them rather then believing that being a doctor or an engineer is the sole destination. It is one life for all of us, one life to laugh and play, sing and dance, fall in love, one life to dream and make dreams come true. The beauty of dreams is that they can change and so can your life. But you need to LIVE in order to dream newer dreams and build a beautiful future. And the only person who can help you fight and overcome failure is YOU yourself. Believe in yourself!
