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I am glad that I failed…
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
It was a bit of a shocker for me when I got my Sociology result a couple of years back. I had failed. Not quite able to believe that I could have failed in a subject, I insisted on seeing my answer script in the Office. I was quite sure in fact that there had been some sort of calculation or typing error on the part of the College Examination Department while tabulating the marks.
I was almost in tears when I verified for myself that due to a really low score in my final examination, I had failed the course. I was completely unprepared for such a result since I knew that I had attended classes regularly and prepared for the exam. Unlike many people who would get jittery before exam, and go around expressing their fear of apprehension of failure, I had always been confident of my ability to do well academically. Hence, the thought of failing was the last on my mind.
Despite having cleared the course after performing much better in the Repeat Examination, it took me some time to reconcile myself to the fact that I was one of those who could fail in an exam! Moreover, I became sceptical about the effect it would have on my future prospects of applying to Universities abroad, and whether it would result in my being automatically disqualified from the competition.
In retrospect however, I am glad that I went through a phase like that. At that time, it seemed world-shattering for me. It resulted in my having a low self-esteem. Scoring well became a yardstick for me to measure the competence of a person. I would literally be in awe of those who were known to bunk classes, or attend classes only for the sake of securing the minimum attendance, and yet managed to pass their exams with flying colours. If truth be told, I thought of these top-scorers as being unparalleled in their intelligence, and grudgingly admired them believing that I could never reach that high level of competence and genius that they were!
With a gradual change of attitude however, I managed to perform even better in other subjects. I realized that failing does not always have much to do with the competence or hard work put in by a person. The best of people fail at some point of time or the other. What is important is that a person keeps working hard with conviction even after having failed.
Lots of people, especially my batch-mates in law school go through depression after getting a low score in a test. Not long back, I was one of them. However, I am glad to have matured enough in law school to not make my performance in exams a matter of life or death. It is foolish to lose hope after an evaluation which will probably not even count as much later on in life. There are bigger tests in life, which are worth preparing for!
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” ― Winston Churchill
Radhika Agarwal
Ex -Cpian
NALSAR
