You have nothing to fear but fear itself

Darpok ! a widely common term used in India referring to cowardice. It has also been a tool for kids to ridicule others when they dont do what they challenge, may be a small thing like throwing a ball or be it something important such as stage show. Learning starts from this age, I claim. Some of them learn to fight against failure and have conquered the world, such as Gandhi ji, Abraham Lincoln and so on, some go deep down drowning lacking self confidence and they are losers, as we may term as. There is a large majority in this spectrum who are not unsure of how to deal though they believe they have the ability to do it. I am one among them. Sometimes an article of this sort really helps.
"Darr ke aagey jeet hai. Conquer fear and you can conquer anything. I learnt this fairly early while growing up in a joint family along with 13 siblings and cousins.

Every evening, we would gather around our grandmother to hear her stories. One of her favorite stories revolved around five pilgrims who were on a journey

to the holy places in the Himalayas. On a bitterly cold night, they arrived at a dharamshala. It had only one room and the gatekeeper warned them against staying there as legend had it that it was inhabited by a big snake. He told them no one had ventured inside for years. On hearing this, the pilgrims decided to play safe and spend the night in the open.

After a few shivering hours, one of them overcame his fear and decided to check the room. On entering, he didn’t find a snake. Instead, a rope lay on the floor. In the dark it resembled a snake. But the other pilgrims didn’t believe the account and decided to sleep outside. The brave one slept soundly; for his fellow travellers it was a long night.

As my grandmother would explain, failure exists only in one’s imagination. We fear failure, because we fear criticism, ridicule or rejection. But the truth is that anyone who has been successful has failed at some stage of their life. From failure comes knowledge of what works and what doesn’t; from failure comes knowledge of one’s strengths and weaknesses and it’s from failure that one begins a more determined attempt to achieve success.

As one grows up there comes the realization that there is no standard measure of failure or success. It is a relative term. What one person perceives as extraordinary success may be an ordinary accomplishment for another. What may seem a failure today often turns out to be insignificant in the long run.

Thankfully, I grew up in an environment where there were no high expectations I would excel academically. I never came first in any school exam. I hardly attended classes at college. That may not be the best thing to do but in retrospect I believe that there are many lessons to learn outside the classroom. Learning about how to build relationships and business partnerships; about human behavior and social dynamics is just as important as classroom lessons to succeed in any field.

It is a fact that in our society we ridicule failure. Rather than encourage people to take the road less travelled, we discourage them. There is encouragement to conform to a set pattern rather than stand out in a crowd. This is why failing an exam or a new venture is feared.

I don’t think setbacks, disappointments, rejections and unsuccessful attempts can be called failures. They are steps to success. How one deals with a setback determines the success of the next step. A sudden setback can be seen as a brick wall. It can also be seen as a stepping stone. It’s the way one perceives it that determines whether an unsuccessful attempt turns into a failure. Absolute failure is about not trying to do new things; it’s about lack of conviction; it’s about giving up."

Kishore Biyani: Chief executive officer of the Rs 5,000-crore Future Group. Biyani, who ranked 20 in a class of 35 at school, is regarded as the man who pioneered the retail revolution in India.

Speaking the truth, I am still afraid of my failures. But I have come out of the reluctance to fight with failure. I am happy that I have made attempts to fight again if failed and have succeeded couple of times. One of my friends came up to me and said that she saw this as one of my good qualities and it makes me happy to see the change I wanted to have. what I lack now is the guts to face my failures though I do face it with full with power packed mental strength when happens.