Failure – A misunderstood successful attempt!

At various stages of my life, I was struggling with the fear of failure. I found it frustrating when I started to put something in motion, as simple as an idea with the fear of being unable to complete it. My mind was filled with unecessary thoughts and materialistic things which held me further back. Yes, I paralyzed with fear that I would fail. I could sympathize with this anxiety about failure but was unable to overcome it. I was worried about failure and the idea of disappointing others.

I think I have developed a great sense of mastering failure for few things ;-). I can’t even call it bad decision-making. I make a decision, evaluate it based on my experience on what might happen, and then make another decision based on the results. If something doesn’t work out, I learn as much as I can from it. Then I either find a better way to do it or do something else. That is all I can do.

In my theory, I think it is impossible to fail. There are two choices – I can either allow the negative results of my decisions to knock me down and keep me from trying again, or I begin to count my failures as lessons learnt for my future successes. If I think about it, it makes perfect sense to look at the plans that don’t work as a positive, because they usually direct me to think out of the box in another direction. And there is always the possibility of getting the unhidden results.

Now my theory is not scientifically proven and I am skeptical at various times. Its like trying to stick to a path long enough to find out if it would work for me or not. Behind every failure is a potential for success, and if I give up too soon, I may never know what wonderful thing I could have accomplished.

“Ah, it is easier said than done”, you would think. Yes…and uhmmm No!

Thomas Edison was supposedly asked by a reporter how it felt to have experienced 1,000 failures in inventing his light bulb, and the inventor candidly replied, “I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb.” What if Edison had given up on the first try?

A surfer on a wave..!!!

While watching a show on television, I marveled at these courageous men and women who woke before dawn, endured freezing water, paddled through barreling waves, and even risked shark attacks, all for the sake of, maybe, catching an epic ride. After few minutes, it was easy to tell the surfers apart by their style of surfing, their handling of the board, their skill, and their playfulness. 

What really struck me though, was what they had in common. No matter how good, how experienced, how graceful they were on the wave, every surfer ended their ride in precisely the same way: By falling. 

Some had fun with their fall, while others tried desperately to avoid it. And not all falls were failures — some fell into the water only when their wave fizzled and their ride ended. But here’s what I found most interesting: The only difference between a failure and a fizzle was the element of surprise. In all cases, the surfer ends up in the water. There’s no other possible way to wrap up a ride. 

That got me thinking: What if we all lived life-like a surfer on a wave? The answer that kept coming to me was that we would take more risks. 

~That difficult conversation with your boss (or employee, or colleague, or partner, or spouse) that we have been avoiding? We should initiate it.

~That proposal (or article, or book, or email) we have been putting off? We should start it.

~That new business (or product, or sales strategy, or investment) we have been over-analyzing? We should follow through.

And when we fell — because if we take risks, we will fall — we would get back on the board and paddle back into the surf. That’s what every single one of the surfers do, right? So why don’t we live life that way? Why don’t we accept falling — even if it’s a failure — as part of the ride?

Because we’re afraid of feeling. Think about it: In all those situations, our greatest fear is that we will feel something unpleasant.

~ The feeling of hurt if we have that scary conversation we have been avoiding and it ends the relationship.

~ The terrible feeling if we follow through on the business idea and lose money.

~ The feeling of awfulness if we submitted the proposal and were rejected.

Here’s the thing: More often than not, our fear doesn’t help us avoid the feelings; it simply subjects us to them for an agonizingly long time. We feel the suffering of procrastination or the frustration of a stuck relationship. I know relationships or partnerships that drag along painfully for years because no one is willing to speak about the elephant in the room. Taking risks and falling is not something to avoid. It’s something to cultivate.

Soon, we won’t have fear feeling. We will pursue it like those courageous early morning surfers. We will wake up before dawn and dive into those difficult conversations and difficult tasks. We will take the risks that once scared us. And we will fall; sometimes we will even fail. Then we will get up and do it again…

Because feeling is what tells us we are alive.

A Blank Page…

There is a story about a time the Buddha was out walking and Angulimala, a notorious serial killer, came upon him. Angulimala shouted for the Buddha to stop, but the Buddha kept walking slowly and calmly. Angulimala caught up with him and demanded to know why he hadn’t stopped. The Buddha replied, “Angulimala, I stopped a long time ago. It is you who have not stopped.” He went on to explain, “I stopped committing acts that cause suffering to other living beings. All living beings want to live. All fear death. We must nurture a heart of compassion and protect the lives of all beings.” Startled, Angulimala asked to know more. By the end of the conversation, Angulimala vowed never again to commit violent acts and decided to become a monk.

How could the Buddha remain so calm and relaxed when faced with a murderer? This is an extreme example, but each of us faces our fears in one way or another every day. Buddha was a human being, and he also knew fear. But because he spent each day practicing mindfulness and looking closely at his fear, when confronted with the unknown, he was able to face it calmly and peacefully. Ofcourse, I can practice mindfulness when asleep but I surely have learnt to acknowledge it now.

Most of us experience a life full of wonderful moments and difficult moments. But for many of us, even when we are most joyful, there is fear behind our joy. We fear that this moment will end, that we won’t get what we need, that we will lose what we love, or that we will not be safe. So even when we are surrounded by all the conditions for happiness, our joy is not complete.

We may think that if we ignore our fears, they’ll go away. But if we bury worries and anxieties in our consciousness, they continue to affect us and bring us more sorrow. We are very afraid of being powerless. But we have the power to look deeply at our fears, and then fear cannot control us. We can transform our fear. Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.

The first part of looking at our fear is just inviting it into our awareness without judgment. We should acknowledge gently that it is there. This brings a lot of relief already. Then, once our fear has calmed down, we can embrace it tenderly and look deeply into its roots, its sources. Understanding the origins of our anxieties and fears will help us let go of them.

Is our fear coming from something that is happening right now or is it an old fear, a fear from when we were small that we’ve kept inside? When we practice inviting all our fears up, we become aware that we are still alive, that we still have many things to treasure and enjoy. If we are not pushing down and managing our fear, we can enjoy the sunshine, the fog, the air, and the water. If we can look deep into our fear and have a clear vision of it, then we really can live a life that is worthwhile.

When things are tough, we tend to get discouraged and do less than we’ve done before. Wrong! This is the worst time to slow down. The best cure for discouragement is to double our effort, so as to calm our fears and motivate us to keep going.

Fearlessness is not only possible, it is the ultimate joy. When we touch non-fear, we are free. But we should not wait for the critical moment to arrive before we start to transform our fear and live mindfully. Nobody can give us fearlessness. Even if the Buddha sat next to us, he couldn’t give it to us. We have to practice it and realize it ourself. If we make a habit of mindfulness practice, when difficulties arise, we will already know what to do.

It takes a lot of hard work to succeed. It’s sad to see people today constantly chasing the next quick fix, the next scheme that promises them a million bucks in 30 days. Because it won’t happen. As the wise said, nothing worthwhile comes easy. If we want success in our life, we have got to work hard at it…we have got to be positive no matter what hits the fan, we have got to believe in ourself and what we are doing.

Few years ago, I  waited for opportunity to knock (like a chrysalis in a cocoon). I did not realize that I needed to hear “No” to get opportunity to open the door. We need to get sufficiently accustomed to hearing “No” so that we can move on to the next conversation with ease and enough curiosity to make necessary changes to get to “Yes”.

We spend a lot of time worried about what is happening to us. We focus a lot of attention on when things might happen. We ask a lot of questions about where we will end up. Often in life, the what, when and where are not going to turn out the way we want them to turn out. We don’t always get to choose those things, but we do get to choose the why. We may not get to choose what our future is going to be, but at any given time we do get to choose why we are living the way we do.

I am not saying that I make impossible possible but sometimes I feel like I can walk into the lion’s den with a string of raw meat hanging from my neck and come out a winner. But as we are warned, life is not easy. It’s not for people who give up, who listen to their fears, or who will not give their all.

Remember life from this moment is still a blank page…