Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Failure phobia

How many times have we come across the word ‘failure’? It is not an uncommon word and the familiarity of this word could be seen on the face of many people now-a-days. What is failure? A game lost by you, an exam not cleared, no worth of your work, getting no suitable jobs, in short a desirable goal not achieved or a certain task not performed is then termed as failure. It is very commonly seen that whenever you struck with failure, saying comes its all fate and when you achieve success, then it’s all hard work.

Why we fail? Is it due to inefficiency on our side that we could not deliver better result? Or is it really fate? As a Muslim, we believe that all are in the hands of Almighty Allah. It is very truly said that for any goal to achieve, the primary step is hard work, and then comes prayer and patience. There are times when you do not work hard enough and at times, your fate is not in your favor. In actuality, there are no specific explanations for failure; you fail so you fail!

There are different opinions about failure by different people, for instance, I asked a guy named Nomaan Usman who is currently seeking job, according to him ‘When you lose hope and stop taking chances, that’s a failure.’ Another lady named Annie, an aerobic instructor, in her opinion ‘When you are continuously ungrateful to the blessings of Almighty Allah, that’s a failure for her. Similarly Maria Mustafa, working as co-operative teacher in Karachi University, according to her ‘Failure is an experience and that’s it! It does not mean that a person is incapable or not talented; rather it means that his/her effort lacked one vital ingredient.

The experience of failure is different for everyone but common behaviors manifested by failure persons are anger, annoyance and fear. Anger and annoyance are observed when person is in frustration. Frustration is an unwanted emotion which naturally exhibited by a person when what he/she want life to be and what it has actually become. There also comes fear which is parcel of failure. Since the scar of failure is so deep that a person begins to fear and doubt on his/her own capabilities. You become isolated, shows disinterest in any kind of work or activity, low self-esteem, no motivation level, no planning even become very much sensitive towards any comment. Everything seems to be bleak and gloomy in a failure person’s life, these are few signs that are apparently seen in failure person.

To overcome failure is not an easy task; it requires a lot of effort, oh yes! it does. If you think that by hiding mistakes or rationalizing your mistakes, this will not help to overcome failure. Similarly blaming others for your fault or to balance out your guilt will not work, even self punishment through depression, illness, setting ourselves up for failure will also not help to overcome failure.

The most significant way to overcome is to endure and be patient. Patience is not only important in success but also in failure. The time of failure to success, though not long but at that time it seems to be very long, everyday you are fighting with your inner self to get positive feedback, in all this patience is the vital ingredient. Then acknowledgement by owning your mistakes and staying calm in face of trouble. Later repair, which means to make an attempt to rectify mistakes of your own and repair any damage as quickly as possible and lastly practice forgiveness to yourself and to others. To achieve greatest aspiration, it is very much important to have courage to face your fear and prepare yourself for possibility of loss.

It is not only you who fail but there are many people like you who failed in their life. Many real life stories are there to inspire you even legends or powerful people in past or present have experience failure but they bounce back. They didn’t just sit and whine instead they strive to work and had an optimistic attitude towards failure. As quoted “You fail when you give up” which is very true. Failure is not a taboo or any kind of bad luck; it is just a phase which comes in everyone’s life. It depend on us whether we want to dwell on it for longer time or move out of it to grab new opportunities.

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