Wednesday, April 10, 2013

The 'F' Word!!!

One fine day I received a phone call from a friend and he asked me to meet him at a coffee shop few blocks away from his house. He has a charming personality, very outgoing and always smiling, but when I saw him at the coffee shop, something seemed unusual. He wasn't exactly the way he always is, and looked very upset, sad and had a very gloomy expression on his face. I figured something was wrong, and as I was sitting down, he said "Man, I am such a big failure in life. No one can trust me anymore, and my parents have given up on me. I don't know what I am going to do, may be just live like this all my life." The words coming out of his mouth surprised me. Turns out, the guy had invested money in some business project which did not work out the way he was hoping for, and he lost some of his invested money. Not only that, this was the second time such a thing had happened to him. I asked him, " Why don't you try again?" and he replied, " I don't know, I fear I will never be good in doing business." Fear, as soon as I heard the word fear, I realized negativity was invading his mind, and just like the British invaded India and looted everything, his positive aura was being looted. 
We all have different fears in our mind, but one common fear that every man beholds is the fear of failure. Failure can be in love, relationships, career, academics, and every other aspect of life. But does that mean we should stop living, or spend the rest of our lives in regret, being sad. . Buddha said, "There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way and not starting." That is exactly what we do, we either don't start or give up mid way. And the reason is fear, fear which gives rise to the question,"What if I fail?' In our pursuit to success we are bound to take actions which might produce some undesirable results. We term it as 'mistakes', and mommy told us not to make mistakes. Making mistakes is no crime (Unless you harm or kill anybody else), but is a part of learning process. They may not teach us what to do, but they definitely teach us what not to do.(And then later if you are stuck in similar dilemma, just treat the situation like a multiple choice question in which you deduct all the wrong options and you get the correct answer.)
Every experience, good or bad is a learning experience. From the good we learn what is to be done, and from bad we learn what is not to be done. So what to do if we face such undesirable circumstances? First of all we should stop thinking that we failed. Failure does not mean falling down, but failure is the inability to rise up and move on. We should treat such circumstances as a road to new opportunity, a wrong turn on the road from which we can always come back and go into the right direction. Learn to learn from your mistakes, and try not to repeat the same mistakes again. As they say, every dark cloud has a silver lining, opportunity is always knocking onto your door, even during dark times. We just need to be aware, and willing to take the efforts to open the door.
My physics professor always told us, "When there is a will, there is a way." So if you are willing to live your life the way you dream it, let go of your fear, don't get scared if there are a few wrong turns on your journey. Focus on the end result, enjoy the journey, and you will get there because we are all meant to be what we want to be.


This is the best quote I have ever come across,
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. You playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened in shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in  some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, Our presence automatically liberates others." 

1 comment: