Bala karthiga M

I’m not here to debate the philosophical implications on mistakes or failures.

I’ll leave that up to you. Cuz one person’s mistake, maybe another person’s pleasure and I’m no one to judge.

Apparently there are three types of mistakes and failures .

 

1. Involved Failures
2. Simple Failures
3. Complex Failures

And as it just so happens, I have examples to cite as an example for each of them.

1. The Health Set Back of 2014. 

Category: Involved Failure.

This was the kind of failure that is easily comprehensible. You can understand the cause, how involved you were in the said cause, and the things at stake. At the same time, as easy as they are to comprehend, these kinds of involved mistakes are tricky in the sense that the consequences of the mistakes, are absolutely inevitable.

The Health Set Back of 2014 was like me hosting a rave party with my life. You know, one of those parties where everything is going fun, wild and amazing – until the moment that you realize that you didn’t pay your electricity bill, or that you are running out of food, or that you did not anticipate the number of guests and you instantly begin to lose control of the party?

Yes. That.

Everybody falls sick.

I know you’re probably thinking this doesn’t count as failure. But I fell sick at a very crucial point of my life. Final year of my undergraduate degree and it was semester time.

This is, by far, the most defining period of my life .

I didn’t know how mentally strong I was, until this failure knocked me down.

[Spoiler alert: I wasn’t even half as strong as I’ve always taken pride at being.]

I learnt so much about myself. For the first time, I noticed something in me that people have always pointed out, but I’ve always refused to admit – I was a tad bit arrogant about my efficiency at working for my dreams. It was the first time that I noticed what people meant.

I was so used to getting everything I wanted.

During my undergrad days, I was a hard working student, I always tried my very best. But when I fell sick, I was forced to admit that not matter how hard I work, I may not always get the things that I work for.

I refused to go to the hospital. I refused to let my parents talk sense into me – because I was one stubborn headed git back then, and hey, Bala wasn’t going to let some petty shit like high viral fever and severe chest pain and a drastic drop in my hb count stop me from writing my final exams, no! Bala was not a weakling, jeez!

This terrible, terrible attitude of not acknowledging when my body was sending me a red signal, kind of finally got to me.

What started out as high fever slowly turned into something else, and I had to go through a ton of hard stuff before I could function like a normal human again. It was a very long and tough time for my whole family.

What I Did To Over Come:

I accepted the situation.

Although I took some time, I began looking at it as a chance to face my biggest fear – losing control of my life. Yes, I’m now extra cautious about my health and am focusing a lot on keeping myself nourished and healthy.

But my point is, having a major health set back at a crucial part of your life, can be a lot more devastating than it sounds. It can turn all your plans and dreams upside down, and make you feel utterly helpless.

At the same time, having such unprecedented failures attack you every now and then helps getting you off your high, high horse. It reminds you that you’re no superhero. It reminds you that you’re human. Only human.

It helps soften you up.

It helps practice humility.

Lesson Learnt: HUMILITY AND FAITH. 

2. The Bad Interview of 2016. 

Category: Simple Failure.

This was the kind of failure that could have been easily avoided. It was a simple failure, you know? The kind of  failures that are easily understandable but need effort to be prevented.

This was me when I sat at the campus interview for a company that was sort of my dream company. Also, it was for a job profile that I was incredibly passionate about and also good at.

In case you’re thinking why I’m being so dramatic about just one bad interview, let me say this in the most humble way possible – I have never given a bad interview or a presentation my entire life. This interview of 2016 was the only one in my entire twenty three years of existence.

Every single one of my friends, classmates and even my rivals were pretty sure that this interview would be a piece of cake for me. I was prepared pretty well. I had experience in the skills the job demanded.

Well plot twist, I blew it. I blew it pretty bad.

Sure, things worked out later, and I quickly got an equally wonderful offer from another company, but I’ll never forget the embarrassing heartbreak that came with this one – the only bad interview of my whole life.

What I Did To Overcome: 

I let go of my stupid pride, and actually cried my hearts out to a few friends. People have never seen me cry and I am sure I may have shocked them in the process but I’m glad that I let go of my ego that one night, and just let myself be vulnerable around my girls.

I cried because it mattered. And at that point, it seemed like the end of the world. I never knew that I would get another offer pretty soon, and that time, in my mind, it felt as if my MBA dream had come to a dead end. It felt so real. It terrified me – maybe because from a very young age, I’ve always been used to people being impressed by me that it felt scary, to have someone tell me they didn’t want me at their company.

This was a dream job, and my entire batch was absolutely confident that Bala would get this.

Perhaps that’s what made it even more painful. To know that I’d let everyone down.

I remember coming back to my room, pretending to put on a strong face (cuz I’m a dummy like that) and acting as if it didn’t matter at all.

I remember seeing this angel of  a person – the one girl in my class that absolutely everyone adores.

Gauthami.

I hope she’s reading this, she’s always motivating me to write positive stuff, and I’ve told her a million times how much I love her, but she’s one of those rare souls who are so good at spreading love, taking care of people and she is just so nourishing!

Gauthami saw me slowly stumble towards my room.

I’m very much the suffer in silence type. I wanted to get inside before I broke down. I was fighting every rising emotion and faking a brave face when she came up to me.

She did not ask ‘Bala, are you okay?’ cuz if she had, I’d have probably told her I was more than okay. She did not ask me how the interview went. She not inquire to scritinize where I went wrong with the panel.

She did something I did not expect.

She walked up to me, and softy said, ‘Bala ma…it’s okay,’ and just TOOK ME INTO ONE ASSURING HUG BEFORE I COULD EVEN SAY ANYTHING.

Everything I was holding back, leapt right out of my chest.  All my fear, all my doubts and all the tears that I’d been holding up to choking point in my throat, melted out of me. I crashed and cried for the first time in front of her – this teddy bear of a person who was still holding me like I was a wounded puppy. For some reason, Gauthami has always believed in me. I don’t know what it is. I should probably ask her. But she’s one of the few people who always believed in my potential when I couldn’t myself.

She held me for a while, sat down with me and talked her hearts out. She made me laugh. Before she left, she said, ‘You’ll soon understand how silly it was for you to take one tiny failure so personally, Bala. You’ll get another offer pretty soon, trust me!’

I trusted her, not just because she was a loving, warm person, but also because she was a HR major and I knew she was good at what she was studying.

Well, exactly weeks later, I got the offer for the job that I’m currently working – and it would be an understatement if I told you I love my job. I am excited about work, everyday when I wake up.

Kindness is such a powerful thing. And you’d be surprised that people who pretend they don’t need it , are actually the ones that desperately need it the most.

I’m glad that throughout my entire twenty years of structured education, that one bad interview taught me something incredible: Sometimes, even when you think you’re the most qualified person around, or even when all your friends think you are the best fit for the job profile, YOU CAN  STILL SCREW UP INTERVIEWS.

Sometimes, life’s like that da!

Lesson Learnt: OVER CONFIDENCE AND PRIDE ARE SLOW POISON TO YOUR GROWTH.

3. The Traumatizing End Of a Eight Year Long Friendsip – 2017. 

Well, you know what they say.

Adversities make you strong.

And God, did this one strengthen me up.

Category: Complex Failure.

This is one of those situations that have complicated causes and the hard truth is, try as you may, there is no obvious way to avoid them. This is because of the people involved in the situation. It’s not about strangers or rivals. It’s about people who are you biggest weakness. The people that you trUst and value the most, which only makes it harder for you to process the incident because, you are blinded by the feelings and attachment to said people.

Just coming to terms with the incident, takes time. You will be in a phase of stubborn refutation. You’ll begin showing signs of denialism because the saddest thing about betrayal is, it doesn’t come from your enemies.

If comes from the people you trusted. The people you had a blindfolded faith on. The people that you cared about.

There is nothing worse than flailing around trying to fix something you don’t understand: you’ll always end up making things worse. 

My most recent failure that’s had a huge impact on me, is of this kind.

I had a falling out with a best friend. A friend I’ve known for eight years now. A friend who did not have the courage to own up to the lies and deception they’d been churning out to multiple people, that they just decided to run away and hide. A friend, who, when everyone I’ve known has grown up, and is marching forward in life, they are still stuck in the same high school drama, the same stagnating pettiness, at twenty four.

I was the collateral damage, the sacrifice that this friend made, in order to catch up with their own lies and immaturity.

To be honest, I’ve had trouble coping with life ever since. People told me to give it time, but with each passing day, it’s only getting too hard to forget.

I have insane trust issues and my anxiety is very bad. My mind is constantly clouded with fear, doubts and insecurities.

Some people are good. Some people are real. Some people are fake. Some people are really good at being fake.

I do not want to get into the details because a) I’m still recovering. b) I’m still recovering.

You see, it takes away a huge chunk of your faith in the world when a person you’ve known for so long, shows you in such vulgar detail the degree to which they are capable of inflicting pain. If the very person you confided in, found a safe space in for years, decides to take advantage of your vulnerability, what chance does the rest of the world stand?

The bitter, toxic end to the most meaningful and the most important friendship I’ve ever had, terribly traumatized me.

What I Did To Overcome: 

I manifested my inner Elsa.

I let it go.

I concealed it and didn’t feel it.

I worked hard (v.v.v.v.v.v.v.vv.v.v.v.v.hard) on trying to love myself again. I learnt to let my friends in and do what they wanted to do to take care of me. And they did.

I was overwhelmed with gratitude. Sure it was one of the worst experiences I’ve had so far, but by the end of it, I began drifting out of my bubble and began seeing the ugly truth of things. I may have lost one friend, but that in turn only made me realize the amount of love that was around me.

I am grateful for my wonderful friends who constantly kept motivating me, checking on me, being there for me and simply reminding me every day that I was worthy of love. I was worthy of respect.

Lesson Learnt: To be honest, the lesson and the learning is STILL UNDER PROGRESS. 

So that’s that.

Three of my biggest failures in life, and everything I did to overcome them.

These incidents only made me grow. I know that sounds terribly cheesy, but I mean this from the bottom of my heart. They wizened me up in way that only terrible mistakes can.

By the end of the process, I felt like a better person. I was stronger. More matured. I now have more inner-stability and less self-sabotage.

A while ago, I’d have thought:

I wish someone had told me just before I was going to make any of these decisions that it was going to be tough. I wish I’d been informed or warned or protected.

But now.

At hindsight,

I think a part of wishing that I’d been warned, is just my way of playing the blame game. I’m glad that I’m finally at a place where I have learnt to take responsibility for my own stupidity.

These things didn’t happen to me because I was not warned.

No.

These things happened to me because I was stupid, naive and unrealistic.

Hell, my fairy godmother might have come down to me and said, ‘Don’t do this honey. Don’t trust this person. They’re pretty toxic.’ For all that I know, I’d have been stubborn with my idiocy and would have refused to believe her.

The ugly truth is – even if I’d had the entire battalion of Ghenghiz Khan standing to protect me, I’d have still gotten myself into all of those above said situations.

Simply because I allowed the things that happened to me, to happen. I was in charge.

Taking ownership for your decisions is easy. But taking ownership for the aftermath of your decisions – that’s a little tough and kind of takes time.

All the mistakes and failures of my life have taught me the importance of two values.

Two core values, that anybody who’s had devastating failures will agree with when I say that they’re all that you need in order to overcome terrible set backs and failures.

Humor and courage. 

You know you’ve reached a healthy place when you’re able to laugh at your mistakes. It takes time, but I assure you they all make great stories in the future.

Also, practice courage. No amount of analysis or philosophical musing’s going to help you unless you restore confidence in yourself.

At every point of failure, one of the most important things that helped me overcome them was this: I learned to love myself.

Life isn’t always perfect. It isn’t a fairy tale or a storybook. It doesn’t always come easy, but it’s a blessing nevertheless.

Life is all about overcoming obstacles, facing challenges, fighting, holding on to my dreams, never letting them go and marching forward.

Life is a lot of work.

But most of all, life is realizing that every hour, every minute and every second was worth it, because I was alive and I was surviving.

Visualize for a moment that you’r’e in a cliff, and you’re jumping into a large lake. You can see almost all of it. You can see just how daunting it looks – the vast waters, the height, your pounding heartbeat – everything. But when you are actually diving in, and you’re into the water, you’re zoomed in up close, focused only on a small stretch of water immediately ahead and behind. You begin swimming, one stroke at a time.

I guess that’s the point of this entire post.

One stroke at a time, sweet darlings.

Just one stroke at a time.

XOXO,

Bala ❤

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