IN FAILURE LIES THE SEED OF SUCCESS

The basic point  I wish to get across is that we ought  to change our perceptions of failure.  Do not view failure as permanent, it is temporary. Do not call it failure , call it a reverse, or  a set back if you will.Do not think of a reverse  negatively, think of it also positively in terms of the lessons it can teach you.

And if you manage to successfully view  a failure as a reverse, you will never think of it as an end of the road situation. Instead you will view it as a bend in the road , which could lead onto broader avenues.

As a teenagers, your reverses,  at this time of the year at least, are largely of academic kind. To you—and more importantly to your parents—I would like to pose one question. Think of any topper in  any  endeavour , be it sports or painting or business or in politics or in performing arts. Was that person a  topper  in studies ? The  answer , most definitely is NO.  So if the best are not really academic  successes , a reverse can never be a closed chapter in your career. Let me give you a very concrete example, which sounds  incredible,  but which can be  checked in a jiffy in these days of the internet. Without argument, the greatest scientist of the last century, whose  abstruse theories  are still being tested , was Albert Einstein. And do you know he failed in his first attempt at the entrance examination for admission to the famed  Swiss Federal  Institute of Technology  at  zurich at age of 16? Yet he landed up with the noble prize………………

Similarly, you can search for the legendary  story of Robert  de  Bruce, the legendary king of Scotland who was inspired by a spider , after failing to dislodge the british from his country in six battles. He succeeded in his seventh attempt.

Reverses may be linked with academics in our competitive  milieu, but as we all realise, reverses will occur in every field; in our finances , our occupation , our relationships and many more . It is therefore imperative   that we learn  to analyse our reverses and never fear them.

Every decision  we take has 50 percent  chance of success ; and an equal chance of failure.  Yet we all have to take decisions . So we must accept that the road to success  will always be littered with mistakes  and  reverses . It is the willingness to learn from our reverses  that is the critical difference between  successful people  and the not -so- successful ones.

So do not be terrified of failure, or reverses. Often , as in the cases of Einstein and King Robert , in failure lies the seed of success. Hence,as they say, “ Greatness lies  not in never  falling , but in rising every time we fall.”