Two months ago I read a book called ' EAT PRAY LOVE'. It was so good a book that I couldnt refrain myself from being inspired by this book. In one chapter, the author said about her experiences as a beginner in meditation and what meditation had done to her, once she had made it a habit to practice daily. suddenly I got so curious and resolved myself to meditate atleast for 10-20min a day.( This is the problem with me. I get inspired so easily. Whenever I see sherlock, I start observing things rather than just seeing. Whenever I read Robin Sharma's words, I think myself as a philosopher. Whenever I see American pie, you know.........)
When I started to meditate, thoughts of everything and anything flooded to my mind.It seemed like my mind was scattered everywhere.After practicing it for a week( without any improvement), I was a bit frustrated and gave up meditation, consoling myself thinking that this is only for the so called highly-balance-minded-people.Though, from the next day, I started to spend some time in solitude in a nice tranquil environment. You could call it as contemplation though not meditation.( First of all, why am I trying all these and being such a lunatic?Because I want to improve myself in some way and since I dont know the exact way, I do all these crazy things. Why do I want to improve myself? Because, BEING JUST AN AVERAGE REALLY SUCKZ)
During those contemplation hours, a lot of questions arose in my mind. Questions which I thought would occur only to philosophers, occurred to me too. Questions like " What is my role as a human in this world? what theology should I follow? Is there something called destiny? Why dont people around me think broadly? et cetera" If you dont believe these questions occurred to me, then just try contemplating.( does these behaviours of me show that I am maturing as a person or its high time that I meet a good psychiatrist???)
Another question that occurred to me was " what is failure?" and this is my favourite one because when I tried finding answers for other questions, I ended up getting much more complex questions and falling into a limbo. But, with failure, I feel I am somewhere near the answer.So let me write something about failure.First, try answering the question " HAVE I EVER FACED FAILURE IN MY LIFE?" Ofcourse, the answer would be a YES.Who wouldnt have faced failure in 21years.
Now, let me try to define failure. Failure, as far I am considered, is WHEN ONE BADLY WANTS SOMETHING AND WORKS DILIGENTLY TOWARDS IT AND EVEN THEN COULD NOT ATTAIN IT.Having said this, if I go to the previous question, my answer surprisingly seems to be a NO. The problem is that we really dont know what we actually want in life. Even if we know, we are too lazy to diligently work towards it. So we never fail at all. But, is not the WORST OF FAILURE IS FAILING TO FAIL?
We never try to succeed at all. We work just to survive in this world rather than work to thrive. We dont have the mindset to explore our hidden talents. All we want is a life with no obstacles.Another important reason for not facing failure is we all, in one way or other, are afraid of failure. That is why most of us dont set goals that are challenging to us.( maybe this is the reason why we are happy with 3+lakh companies and dont try hard enough for 10+lakh companies). There is actually nothing to be afraid of failures. As all of our self-help books would say " failures are good teachers."I think, I sound as if I have seen enough of this world that I am entitled to give free advices. Actually, all these adcivces are more to myself than anyone else.(And here goes my final advice)
Being an audience is easy.But, only a player is revered and celebrated, though he fails at times. So even to fail, you need to be committed to what you do.Hence FAILING, IN A WAY, IS A SMALL SUCCESS.
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by prem
