Failures Are Good
It pains me to hear about a 8th standard student ending her life because of failure in her annual exams. Or a promising medical graduate hanging from his ceiling fan because he could not make it through the MD exam. Ending life because of rejection by girlfriend or boyfriend make up most other headlines. It makes me wonder how ill equipped our children are to face failures and setbacks in life. And what is life without failures and setbacks? Perhaps it the mindset we are inculcating in our children. That success is about never failing, never having to face tough situations, never going through lean periods. Unnatural, isn’t it, when everything in life is so ephemeral. Seasons change, geographies change, people change. And yet, we perpetuate the belief that a change from good to bad is not acceptable. Reading about suicides makes me sick when I think of how excruciatingly painful it is for a mother to accept, that the miracle which took her 9 months to bring forth, has been destroyed in an instant. Ending a life is no man’s privilege. It is not ours to take as it is not ours to build. But that would start a separate thread and is not part of this discourse. Today, I am just wondering if our bringing-up has anything to do with our children being more prone to taking their own life, when it does not seem to go in the direction they intended.

As parents, we express our disapproval for anything that is not quite up to the mark. Falling down is bad, that is why we console our kids when they fall down and hurt themselves. We do not celebrate it or even welcome it as something which is essential to their growth. It should be easy to gauge the effect of failure on a child who has never hurt herself in life, who has never experienced hurt. Well-meaning but over protective parents, by never letting their children experience the pain and hurt in life, give them a subtle yet strong message. A two-fold message in fact. One, that failure is not a natural process which is to be experienced; and two, that failure is not their responsibility but someone else’s fault. When we smack the floor after a toddler falls down, we give him/her to understand that it is the floor’s fault. The child need not do anything different, we will hit the floor and he/she will be alright. Shouldn’t we be telling the kid to walk carefully and that if we do something in a certain way, we get a certain consequence? That, whatever we do, is a consequence of our actions and not someone’s fault. Even toddlers can understand the simple cause and effect theory.

We need to remember that children are deeply affected by our reactions and responses, much more than we ever care about. They carry our responses with them for life. How we respond to them, their actions, good or bad, has the potential to determine and significantly define their lives. Little Tommy, in kindergarten, gets 4 out of 10 in English test and his mom says, the teacher is not good enough. Either she didn’t teach him well or she didn’t judge his performance well. In short, teacher’s fault. His essay looked perfect to his parents. So, little Tommy has little motivation to do better next time. Sunny’s mom, on the other hand, tells him to work harder and score better and that is what he is encouraged to do. Sunny’s mom is, in fact, happy to know that her kid has not scored too much. She is happy that Sunny has something to learn and improve upon and that is the message she gives out to him. Sunny will learn from his failure, little Tommy will learn to blame his teacher every time he scores less. We see these kids later in college and it’s the same response. Little Tommy, now Big Tommy, does not do well in the final semester as his professor didn’t give him good marks in the practical exam. Big Sunny, if he does not do well, tries to find out where he went wrong and puts in effort to improve. A few more years, and the two are working for an organization. Tommy, when he does not get a promotion and gets a bad feedback from his supervisor, blames it on the latter. His supervisor is not a good mentor, not good at his job and favors some select people. He never once looks at his own performance as something that could be worked upon. Sunny, when he gets a feedback, tries to analyze ways to improve his performance. In fact, he always seeks feedback from his supervisors and peers and tries to improve on his skills. The feedbacks, even the bad ones, propel him to positive action without undermining his confidence in his abilities.

Since the time he scored a 4 out of 10 in English, in kindergarten, Tommy has learnt from his mother, to direct the responsibility of failure on someone else and not do anything about it. Sunny has been taught to learn from his mistake and do better next time. Failure for one, is an excuse for working less next time while for one it is an opportunity to do better. If, at some point of time, Tommy does not find anyone to blame, he would not know what to do with his life. Passing the buck is how he deals with setbacks. Since he has never learnt to take charge of his own life, he will get stuck and never have any motivation to get past the point of failure and take his life forward. It is in this stage that most suicidal tendencies surface. Because we can see no future beyond it, because life seems to have come to a dead end and we don’t know where to go from here, how to go ahead, we can only think of ending the misery right then and there. And it does end, right then and there – a promising life cut short only because we didn’t know how to deal with failure.

As parents, the most important thing we can do for the child is to let him/her develop a mindset that is growth and learning oriented and perceives failures as just another chance to learn something. This is all that a failure, setback or mistake really means. Another chance to learn, another opportunity to add to your reservoir of experiences and an inspiration to do it better the next time. Continuous Improvement should be a way of life. Mistakes and failures are not the end; they are the beginning of a wiser, more enriching life we can lead, now that we know better. You need not end your life or stop trying something if you encounter failure; you can build a new castle again, the way a spider or a bird would do. Rebuild it again. And again. And yet again. As long as there is life in you, castles can be built again, no matter how many times they break down. The most unfortunate thing for a heart is not cardiac arrest; it is the loss of hope. The most unfortunate thing for a mind is not the loss of memory; it is the loss of learning. Where hope abounds and continuous learning is the goal, life will have a purpose and meaning till the very end. A meaningless existence is forced upon us, not by destiny but by our own choices. It is our choices that make us who we are. Let us enable and empower our kids today to make better choices for themselves tomorrow. Let us inculcate hope and a love of learning, before we teach them anything else. For the rest, life is the best teacher……………..Aum Shanti!