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How I faced failure and took charge of my life

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It was a lovely evening in the month of August 2012. The juniors in college were busy decorating the auditorium to give us a warm farewell party. It was the end of four years of my college life. As I walked towards the decorated auditorium, I felt a deep sense of hollowness. It was a day to reflect, and all I ‘achieved’ was a burden of 32 backlogs. When most guys and girls were busy celebrating their graduation, I was sitting alone, confused and devastated.

Personal tragedies had haunted me since childhood and to top it all, I went through an epic love failure in the final year of college. I had enough reason to feel that life is miserable and meaningless.

A few years ago, when I secured a good rank in the state engineering exams, I never thought I would end up like this. To be honest, I was late to realise that engineering was not my cup of tea or that I hardly enjoyed learning those subjects. The problem was, I happened to be a good student throughout my school days. If you’re wondering how that can be called a problem, let me elaborate. According to our society, if you are good at studies, you have just two options – become a doctor or an engineer! So, if you’re not very good at studies, you’re lucky! You could be anything. Because then, you are free from the burden of expectations. Nobody really cares about the word ‘aptitude’ and its importance. So what does a poor aptitude plus a lazy attitude equal? Massive Failure.

Every spark of enlightenment is preceded by a phase of depression. Even the great Arjuna had to go through depression right before the war of Kurukshetra. So, in my case, there I was, hopeless and depressed, with no friends to share my grief. I was always an optimist by nature. But even that didn’t help as I was so emotionally drained. That’s when I realised that college is the place to make friends and not a life partner! It took me months to recover. I listened to lot of Michael Jackson songs, read a lot of self help articles and started a blog to fill myself with positive thoughts and inspiration. I started writing inspirational posts and shared it on social networking sites. The resulting positive feedback that I received from readers infused a whole lot of confidence in me. I think our life and circumstances are nothing but a reflection of our inner world. Miserable in, miserable out. Happy in, happy out. It was a quite a helpful realisation to have at that stage of my life.

During this period of emotional recovery, I contemplated whether I could be an achiever in life without a college degree. There were several real life legends who had done so and most had at least two things in common – failure and obsession/passion. I started reading inspiring tales of people who had managed to succeed even after hitting the lowest point in their lives.

In the meantime, things were not so smooth at home and outside. I was bombarded with questions everywhere. Everyone wanted to know whether I’d got placed or why I was still at home after graduation. I had to hide myself indoors all the time to avoid these routine questions. I managed to evade some with the usual set of lies, like saying I was preparing for GATE, bank coaching or on the job hunt etc. But the relentless questions soon became unbearable and I was forced to think about a temporary job just to shut everyone up! So I attended a couple of Interviews, where graduation was not mandatory and even got through jobs. But in the end, my father asked me to complete my degree first. Things were getting tougher now.

It was then that one my friends came up with a brilliant startup idea. It was a time when startups and young entrepreneurs were getting a lot of attention, especially with the success of the Kochi startup village. Even seniors from my college had dropped out and started their own successful company. Maybe dropping out of college wasn’t a bad idea after all? I decided to go ahead with the startup idea. We worked as a team to plan and submit the project report. After months of discussions and planning, we got it sanctioned by the officials and were all set to realise our dream. But alas! Unexpected personal issues hit my friend, which stalled everything. Finally, the project had to be discarded and that was the end of that dream.

A few months passed. One fine morning, while I was sipping my morning tea and reading the newspaper, an ad caught my attention. A popular FM radio channel was inviting applications for RJs and program producers. Another opportunity! I didn’t even think or wait for a day and applied. I believed I had the ability to impress them if I was selected for the interview. And I did! I had a dream run for three rounds of interviews. Voice test, written test and personal interview. I was selected for the final round, among thousands of other candidates from the state. I felt quite good about myself then. But to my utter shock, I was rejected in the final round! This is life. You can just play the game, but can never question the umpire. Thus ended 2013, wasted in meaningless pursuits. And I had only managed to pass 10 papers out of the 32 backlogs. I was still 22 papers away from my graduation.

The back-to-back rejections and failures forced me to introspect. I felt something was seriously wrong with my life. Whatever I did, ended up being fruitless. I was seeking answers and felt I should get in touch with my spiritual self once again. It was then that I started practicing yoga and meditation. It really helped me settle down the sea of thoughts in my mind. Bhagavad Gita once again became my favourite book. A deep sense of peace filled my mind. It was during those days that the books Autobiography of a Yogi and Messages from the Masters found me. Yes, I started believing that it’s not we who choose a book, but the book that chooses you. Simply because you deserve the energy it has to offer. The moment you feel you are a seeker, knowledge starts flowing into you. It fills you with light and reconfigures your mind and body. Now I could forgive the people who had hurt me in the past. I realised that each and every person in my life had a role to play. Once their role is over, they leave us. And that’s perfectly fine. Not everyone is bound to stay with you forever. Those who stay, have a bigger role to play. That’s all. And slowly, I realised why I had gone through various failures. It was simple. Life had tried to teach me the importance of hard work and I had refused to learn. I was chasing instant gratification and that was against the laws of nature. Even water has a threshold to meet before it becomes steam. And once it becomes steam, it can do things which water can’t – like moving trains! Likewise, we all have a threshold to meet, before we taste success, before we become heroes, before we can change the world. That’s a life lesson that I learned the hard way. I decided to take responsibility of my life. I no longer blamed anything or anyone for my failures. I resolved to complete my degree.

The moment I took responsibility of my life, everything changed. Life gifted me with a beautiful angel. Since our love story is not the matter of interest here, I’ll skip that part. She suggested that I take up CAT coaching alongside regular preparations for my BTech papers as she felt I’m gifted with skills required for management. Now I was focussed on improving myself every day. It was not easy to break old habits and form new ones. It was not easy to stay motivated throughout the marathon of 22 exams. It was embarrassing to face my professors and juniors every time I went to college to write my exams. But I knew that I had to struggle through the tunnel of darkness to see the light. This was in many ways comparable to the escape of Andy Dufresne in the movie Shawshank Redemption 😀 At times, I felt exhausted. At times, I felt like giving up. But the angel kept pushing me and supporting me through tough times.

In November 2014, I gave my CAT exam with average preparation. Mainly because I had my BTech exams lined up throughout the year and had no option but to sacrifice the preparation hours for CAT. When the results were out, I scored close to 80 percentile, which wasn’t good enough to get into the IIMs. But I was content with what I had achieved. I could still apply to a few colleges featured in the top 50 B-schools of the country. By then, I had cleared 20 papers at a stretch and the results of the last two papers were pending. I had to attend the B-school interviews with my results pending. Obviously, this made my profile very weak. During the interviews, I was asked about my poor academics and the years I had ‘lost’, according to them. I maintained total honesty in all my answers. I explained to them how irresponsible I was during my college days and how things changed when I started taking responsibility of my failures. In one interview, one of the panel members asked me, “How can we believe that you are a changed man?” I humbly replied, “Despite all my failures, I’m sitting in front of you right now, attending the interview of a top B-school in the country! Doesn’t this prove that sir?” They smiled. Two weeks later, I received an email stating that I was selected for their flagship program in MBA – marketing! Maybe they felt I had marketed my failures well to earn a spot in a B-school 😉

The much awaited results of my last two papers were to be published within a month. The tension was high as everything depended on the results. Failure in even one paper would prove fatal for me. But the sweat finally paid off..I passed! Tears flowed from my eyes. I used to wonder why champions cried after winning. Now I knew. That scene in my life was more like Chris Gardner crying in the end from the movie Pursuit of Happyness. 😀 The one moment that I will cherish forever. The joy of bouncing back is something special. I don’t regret my failures because they pushed me to find myself. If you have to appreciate success better, then you have to fail, and fail often. I got selected in all the interviews I attended, except one.

Very soon, I will be a student at the prestigious B-school, IISWBM Kolkata, which was the first B-school in India. It is also the first B-school to complete a golden jubilee of existence, for which the government of India released a commemorative postage stamp. When people ask me, “Oh, you didn’t get into IIM?! Very bad”. I reply with a smile and say “Yes, I missed the grape juice, but I was served wine!”

So, am I happy? No, I prefer a better word to express the feeling beyond happiness – I’m content. This is not an incredible tale of success. But this is surely my first step towards a purposeful life. Now, I can contribute to my family, my society and my country in a much better way. When you are trapped in a life situation which makes you feel uncomfortable, you should look for the signs and omens. I truly believe that life sends you messages. A lot has been written about following one’s heart to live a successful life, and and of it makes sense. We are all blessed with the power to decipher the signs and warnings that the universe sends us. It’s always trying to push you back to the right path. I think, you should not let one wrong decision ruin your entire life. We are bound to make mistakes. We should learn from it, rectify them and move on. That’s why experience is not the best teacher, but evaluated experience is!

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