What inspires us? According to me, it is not always the success stories, we see, hear or read about, inspires us to either pursue a dream or sometimes surpass them. Stories of failures and unsuccessful attempts are equally important to inspire us and help us analyze a challenge from different perspectives. Failed attempts and failures teach us to be more innovative and motivate us to improvise to be successful.
Failure is always given a negative connotation. Everyone fears ‘failure’ and there is a certain taboo attached to it. Individuals are trivialized and constantly made aware of the fact that they are not good enough to face this world, which won’t give them a second chance. If there were no failures, how would we savor the triumphs and successes?
Over the centuries, till date, mankind has faced innumerable failures and every development and progress that we see is a ‘work in progress’. Nothing in this world is flawless. We have the latest technologies in every field- healthcare, energy, infrastructure, education, digital media, the internet, automobiles, space projects, agriculture; our lives have been enhanced by these new-age successes. These successes are achieved after many unsuccessful ventures and by continuously improving on the existing plans.
Even for an individual, we learn new things every day, and we continue learning till the last day of our life. So, failure is not permanent. We fail one day and it makes us stronger and our endeavor to find new ways to succeed becomes a mission. Failure makes us think and our resolve to succeed becomes more important.
Let me tell you, failure is momentary, and so is, success. Nothing is permanent and we have to continue our journey and move ahead in life, to make things work for us. We have to inspire ourselves, from within, and also inspire, those around us going through a tough time. It is a failure on our part to resign too soon.
As a society, we have to give up this dichotomy. Success and failure are two sides of the same coin. It depends how you flip it and on that particular day how it lands. If we become comfortable with failure we can evolve and mature as individuals to become successful. It is important not to give up without an effort.
Failure tests our sincerity and tenacity; how sincere we are and the amount failures we can survive before we can finally cross every hurdle, to achieve success. Achieving success is not the only objective; it is just the beginning of a long journey, which will be difficult enough to traverse. As I have said, “success is not permanent”; one has to put double the effort to continue with the success.
Learn from life, from failures and successes, both. It is nothing to be ashamed of failure and we have to face life with grace and equanimity. Every word of discouragement thrown at you should make one more determined and should be the stepping stone for your success. It is important to be modest in failure as well as in success.
Be kind, grateful, compassionate and have the will to empower everyone around you. Treat life with dignity and life will reward you. Remember, life is inspiring.
Amitav Chowdhury 