Success is an event and so is a failure

After June 12th, when the UPSC Prelims exam results came out, I received a bunch of emails from people who did not qualify. Many were dejected and called themselves ‘a failure.’

But what is failure really?

Here are two ways to think about failure.

  1. Failure as an event: You do an experiment in a lab and it fails. You try to hit a shot in cricket, and you fail to connect with the ball. And so on.
  2. Failure as an identity: Just the way some people are musicians, writers, and software engineers, you think of yourself as a failure. As if ‘failure’ is what you do for a living (like a software engineer codes for a living).

Which one does your failure look like? I am yet to come across the second type.

I have done a lot of life experiments and some have bombed spectacularly. But that doesn’t make me a failure.

Success is an event. And so is a failure.

There is no such thing as ‘I am a failure’ — that is just a story in your head.

That story is misplaced and only leads to self-sabotage. So drop that story today. And start again. Do one more experiment with life. 

– Rajan

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