Failures as stepping stones

I know one thing for sure, I do not determine the success or failure of the things I am engaged in. Though I would desire success in all that I do, I do not succeed in achieving it; I am not able to say if there is something basically lacking in me, or if I am expecting far too much from life. I do have a good share of success in life, and for that I would ever be grateful to God; there were times when my companions and friends had envied me, and I had floated in vain glory. I even thought that I was smarter than what I had been imagining myself to be, or what others had thought me to be. But at the end of the day, I cannot help but admit that I am a mixture of success and failures in life, and I cannot hold on only to successes, for the real stepping stones in life are failures.

The world around me insists that success in life is the yardstick to measure the worth of life, but if that be the case a good majority of the human population would be condemned to failure in life, because what they had managed to achieve in life in terms of success are too negligible to mention. I know that success alone cannot be the indicator of how I have fared in life; I need to look for some other objective criteria, which will help me to assess my own self and that of others. Unfortunately the whole world may shout in unison that I was a utter failure in life and had not scored well in the examination of life, even if I had done my best. But I know with God there is a different kind of yardstick, and here he would look at my efforts and not so much the fruits of my labor.

Everyone around me looks at the fruits of my labor, if they are sweet or sour. There is not a single soul who would appreciate sour, but everyone would go in unison for the sweet. But the sour moments alone help a person to appreciate the beauty and wonder of the sweet. I had been overly conscious of achieving success in life, and in the meantime had failed to live life as it came to me with all its innumerable hues and colors. I had failed miserably to taste what life offered me, and even if I had succeeded in life from the point of view of the world, I have failed miserably before the Lord and before my own inner self. I had resisted the moments of my failure and cursed everyone who had made me fail in life, because it came as a bitter moment for me; it would take a life time for me to understand the secret behind every failure I had walked through.

If every single person were to succeed in life, and does not experience failure, then life would be quite different. It is only because there are failures that we could strive towards success, but there are moments when we find it hard to rise up from the fall and continue further in life. There are the moments we long for a helping hand, and who else but God stretches out his hand on the Cross and helps us to hold on to the wooden frame which is the ultimate symbol of failure. If the Son of God had gone through the ultimate symbol of failure, what is there for me to accept miniscule minute failures, which may not even leave behind their traces in my life. It is the crucified Lord who accepted joyfully the shame of utter failure, which could give me the sight to see the wonder of embracing failures when they come my way!

There is nothing more shocking and embarrassing for me than the moment of failures; this is the most unwanted reality in my life, and in fact there is not a single soul on earth, who would willingly and joyfully welcome failure. This is the unwelcome friend who alone can help us understand and appreciate the hard way to face reality. Today I stand to welcome every failure which may come knocking at my door, because it is only when I embrace it joyfully that I can enter into the very mystery of the Cross, and then I may find my way to the mystery of the resurrection, a success which may far surpass anything I could ever think of. This perhaps is the way of the kenosis, the self-emptying love of the Lord for his people. If I want to partake of the paschal mystery, then there is no other way than the path of failures, shame, scandal and humiliation which the crucified Lord walked through. Today this could be my way too to find fulfillment and true joy in life.

Fathoming Failures

If failures in life were to be the yardstick to assess our human worth, then there would be no human person left on earth; perhaps the animals and plants would be much better off in that case. We know that everyone encounters failures at some stage or other, and I would be bold enough to say that not a single human person is there, who has never encountered failures in life. We could say that failures are our second nature, and it is only because of our failures that we can bow down our heads before God, nature and circumstances and acknowledge our limitations. Every time I fail to accomplish something, I feel bad, and sometimes the failures put me off, and I regret for not doing my best for the work assigned, and when people cannot face failures, they go to the extent of ending their lives. Every time results in schools are announced, there would be at least a couple of cases of suicides of students.

When my friend told me that she had not got through one of the two examinations she had appeared for, I was not disturbed. From her voice I could make out that she was disturbed by the results, and she even said that it would take her a couple of days to get over the feeling. Serious people would often find it hard to accept failure, especially if they had given their best for a work and at the end to face failure is unthinkable. Such people think that failure indicates that all their labour has gone in vain, and it was a futile job that they had spent so much of their time and energy. But we do know that there are areas where success does not depend on our ability or intelligence alone; there are other factors which are responsible for getting through in life. Therefore we need to look at failures at the proper perspective.

How much of responsibility could we take up for the failures that we encounter in life? There is no magical formula with which we could measure the rate of our responsibility; it all depends on how much of the work depended ourselves per se. For instance, to get through the examination, mere intelligence is not enough; we would hope that one is able to write well in the examinations; feeling sick on the day of exam may be enough to produce bad results. Then we would hope that the answer script lands an examiner who is in his proper disposition to look at the paper objectively. If he or she had a fight at home in the morning, then the reaction of that anger might be reflected on the answer scripts. Then we would hope that the addition of the marks is done accurately and that there is no addition mistake, and lastly that the persons reproducing the marks on the final list do the good job and don’t change the figures. All these are responsible for our success.

Even if there had been a loophole in the entire process, then our success could be jeopardized. Therefore it is proper to take failures with a pinch of salt. There are external pressures which control our success; psycho-social and cultural context also contribute their own mite towards our success. My purpose is not so much to justify the failure that my friend had to face, but to look at success and failure with as much objectivity as possible. I had known that she was not in a proper frame of mind when she went to write the examination, and had even told me how she felt while writing the exam, and therefore I could not blame for failing in one exam. Blaming her for the failure could only cripple her self-confidence and usher in more failure.

How are we to look at failures in life? Failures in life cannot be taken as the failure of the person; we need to dissociate failures from the persons. Failures, we are told, are stepping stones to grow and forge ahead, and they could also become the proper motivation to excel and go beyond the expected standards. They could serve as the spark of flame which could explore the volcanoes of creativity and originality. If a school dropout could build an empire of software companies (I am referring to Bill Gates of Microsoft), and another school dropout who finished his schooling at the age of 13, could give the world the consciousness on the present moment (I am talking about Eckhart Tolle, who had revolutionized the world with his ‘The Power of Now’), we all of us can make something worthwhile out of our failures. The only precondition in the process is that we do not turn back, but fix our eyes on the goals set ahead and march forward.

Authoring Ambition

At my age, probably it is not easy for me to vibe with a young girl of 16; times have changed and so also are people and their thinking. My niece today thinks about herself, her future much more than I did when I was at her age. Her concerns today are quite different from mine some three decades ago. Though it is not a good idea to compare people from two different epochs, and yet I feel certain things in life cannot be ignored or taken lightly. Ambition is the hallmark of this generation, and every young man and woman today may swear by it. But it is for us to realize that the very word ‘ambition’ has been much maligned after Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and therefore it needs some qualification.

Unfortunately ambition is considered something that we should not give in to, because the fruit of ambition could be the fate of Caesar or Brutus. The modern generation, however, is not going to accept the theory of Shakespeare, which is some five hundred years old; modern thinkers and sages might just propose a contrary theory, saying that anyone who does not have ambitions may not succeed in life. The concept of thinking big is in reality an offshoot of this kind of thinking, which is fast catching up among the youth. It has not spared my niece either, though her ambitions are most often toned and molded by family members and friends. But there is fear that this ambition might go out of control if it is not kept under certain tension.

Choosing between two schools is indeed an important factor to realize the dreams and ambitions students nurture deep within; however the schools are merely the media which provide the proper ambience for nurturing of the dreams. The schools are only instruments in shaping the destiny of the youth, but they do not determine the destiny. It would be fatal if we were to consider that the schools are ultimately responsible for our future orientation. For a student who is serious about his/her dreams and ambitions, any school maybe good enough to flower forth, and for a frivolous one even the best of schools may not help much to reach the dreams.

I realized how the peer pressure could throttle the steady growth and nurturing of these dreams in the youth, when a few phone calls threw my niece haywire; it is true that friends would love to stay together and support one another during their school days; however they would soon realize that they cannot stick together all the way; sometime or other their ways will part, and each one will have to find his/her own way. Her friends had informed her that they were joining a “good school” as opposed to the “bad school” that my niece was joining. This thought that she was not admitted into a good school had caused enough of tears, and it took quite a while to make her understand that what makes real difference is self-determination and hard work, and not merely the schools.

The dreams and ambitions of the youth cannot be shaped by peer pressure or convenience; sometimes we hear young people wishing to be what their friends wish; this is a temporary arrangement, and it will soon fail, because the interests and orientations of each youth vary considerably. There are a lot more calculations and reading the signs of the times, which help the parents and other family members to arrive at a particular path to help the youth to reach the goal they have set for themselves. Trust in the guidance of the family, especially of parents, will be a great asset in this lonesome journey of the youth, and it is sure to bear rich dividends at the end. The youth will need to fall back on the resources of this trust and confidence in the near ones, especially when the going is tough. I believe this has been a tough moment for my niece, but I know she understands the dynamics of this process.

Beyond ‘Reasonable Risks’

There is certain amount of thrill in facing impossible tasks and challenges, things which might appear to be impossible, but when one puts one’s heart and mind to it, it might become easy, and the joy of breaking the so-called barriers can last for decades and even a life time. When a person with normal intelligence and acumen might prefer to limit him/herself with reasonable risks, the dare devils might go beyond the reasonable risks, and thanks to these kind of men and women, we can boast of finding solution to many of the mysteries of the universe and life on earth. If Tenzing Norgay thought scaling the highest mountain on earth was going to be an impossible task, and beyond reasonable risk, then we would not have hundreds of men and women who had ever since reached the top of the Himalayan range.

I love taking risks, not only reasonable risks, but also the risks which would put myself to test. There is no greater test to assess the guts one has, than to push him/her beyond the prescribed limits. Ultimately what it takes to scale the impossible is not merely the brain or the intelligence, but self-determination and confidence. One may have intelligence, but if one does not have the determination and confidence, then the work would suffer failure. Those who had pushed themselves beyond the reasonable risks had reaped a rich harvest, and history is proof to this. It is possible sometimes people had to suffer failure, but that not because the task had been impossible to achieve, but some other elements might have brought down the determination and confidence, thus leading to failure.

But for the daring, even failures are not end of everything; it is only part of the process, and further attempts could help the person to go even beyond the limits of success and achievement. One need not be an IAS (Indian Administrative Services), in order to go beyond reasonable risks; every person is capable of experimenting with this, in whatever situation we are in. Even a simple experiment as sitting at the study table with a serious work can prove that it is not impossible to achieve what has been branded as impossible. We have enough psychological power to even destroy the world in an instant, and if only this power is put to use, life can be very different.

I had the fortune of experimenting with the so-called impossible task in a limited way, and I found it an enjoyable experiment, and since then I have been looking for scaling the impossible heights, and not be complacent with the reasonable risks. For a person who had been used to life in a city with all the comforts it offers, it would be quite impossible to live in a village, where even the basic necessities of life were scarce. Comforts apart, life was quite daring and challenging, and the institution was in a mess after the director had to be removed on medical grounds all of a sudden, and there was no one who had been prepared to replace him. Then out of the blue, I called up my superiors and informed them that I was ready to volunteer to go to that place. From the time I landed up there, I enjoyed every moment of my two year stay.

I have realized that one of the most important dispositions to go really beyond the reasonable risks is to consider the task as a test to one’s self and not so much a task which had been imposed. Failures may occur when one takes it as a task assigned, and not the one which concerned him/her. The second requisite is related to the first : happy to be part of the process, not merely the end. Some are over obsessed with the goal, which they may forget to enjoy every moment of the process of scaling the impossible, and that could be a futile exercise. What happens if for some reason or other one fails in the challenge; it under normal circumstances, should not upset the person, because one has to savor the joy and happiness of the process and not merely the final moment of victory or success. If this is the attitude with which one embraces an impossible, then success is just inches away.

The Pieta

As one walks through the magnificent St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican, one is awe-stuck at the innumerable works of art displayed at the holy place. The bigger than life size sculptures of popes of the bygone days, the paintings of some of the most notable artistes of different ages; beauty and sanctity have joined hands, and sometimes it is art which takes the upper hand, and religiosity moves behind. There is pomp and magnificence as one walks through the sacred portals, sanctified by innumerable men and women over the two millennia. But what remains today in this headquarters of the Roman Catholicism is of great and immense value to the universe and to humanity. In a sense, Vatican and the city of Rome bear witness to the great sense of art that Romans entertained in their design of the city, buildings, walls, temples. Imagine the Pantheon in the heart of Rome, which has altars for all possible religious groups, thus paving way for inter-faith communion, rather than dialogue.

But let me focus my attention to one of the most note-worthy treasures of St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican, the Pieta by Leonardo da Vinci. The marble sculpture bears witness to the close bond that a mother and her son can cherish. The gentleness of the mother almost flowing out of her grace-filled face, and the humble submission of the Son, who allows himself to be cuddled by the all loving hands of the Mother – you would probably need a magnifying glass to really study the feelings and emotions that the artist has poured into his work of art. This is one place in the basilica, where there is always a big crowd, as they enter in, and find it soon at the right. The life size sculpture captures the basic human bond, in the most eloquent way, and it is a treat to the body and the soul of every mother and son, who are tied by a bond beyond all telling.

Perhaps the most enduring bond between two human beings is between a mother and her child. Even in 60, a man is a child to his mother, a woman is a child to her mother. That filial bond can never be severed, even if one party deliberately wishes so. This is one of the miracles of nature; even in 60, a son would love to rest his head on the lap of his mother, who might be in her eighties. The comfort and security of this bond is so very different from the kind of bond that the world knows. Is it not strange then that when a person who is old enough to be a grandparent is sick, the person’s mother would love to take care of him/her as if the person were a child; she would not even hesitate to bathe, feed and dress him/her. One can be as vulnerable and helpless as one is in front of one’s mother, because she only can understand the child she had given not only birth, but also shaped inch by inch. It is this eternal bond that flows out of the Pieta.

One of the greatest gifts that we human beings can cherish is our mothers; this is in no way to belittle the significant role that our fathers play in our lives. Since we had been dependent on her from the moment of conception, through the long months of carrying in the womb, and seeing the light of day through her body, we carry in ourselves our mothers. We had been drinking her blood every time we suckled her breasts, and were nourished by it. But coming in contact with the worldly pressures, we lose touch with the tenderness of our mothers, and become hard at heart. The suppleness of heart, tenderness of feelings are lost too soon. I wish we take the photos of our mothers at some of the most significant moments of our life on earth: childbirth, sickness, success, pain. It is only a mother who can give back the life her son or daughter had lost.

Today I would like to place myself in front of the Pieta, and bring to my eyes my mother; I would like to replace the eternal mother with my own mother, and would like to replace the eternal Word with my own self. I would like to see myself cuddled by my mother; caressed by her loving tender hands. I would like to become a child again to her, so that I may experience the bond that keeps me close to her. I also would like to thank all the mothers who have crossed my way; I have another mother who has nurtured my intellectual thirst, another mother who nurtures me when I am very far from my biological mother. After all, all mothers have this quality of tenderness in their genes, and today I bow my head to these mothers, and pray for God’s abundant blessings on them. I only wish I have the tenderness and loving compassion that my mothers have for me! (Brussels)

Following the Leader

Sitting among about seven thousand men and women, in a large auditorium in Vatican, Rome, awaiting the arrival of the Roman Pontiff to grant audience to the eager visitors, I had mixed feelings criss-crossing my mind, and for a while I thought the mighty setup which has become the seat of power for the Roman Catholic Church, has not much to offer to the simple people who had come to the Eternal City with so much of love and expectation, than a far away glimpse of the Pope. When the Pope began to address some groups, a few of them out of deep love and admiration shouted Sancta Papa (holy father), and I really wonder if the Pontiff really realized what these people wanted to tell him. Was there any paternal instinct in him, that expressed itself, in response to their loving call? At one moment I thought if the pope had become insensible to the feelings of the thousands of people. In the name of security, the pope had remained far away from the masses, and that pains me.

Yesterday we had the fortune of witnessing the 44th president of the United States of America, Barrack Obama assuming office at the White House, and the countless number of men and women who had gathered to witness this wonderful event had much to contribute to the success of his political career, and it is the masses who had made him what he is now; and rightly he is accountable not only to every American citizen, but as extension to every citizen of the world. He did not mince words in expressing his commitment to rebuilding the world, and in ushering in the reign of truth and justice, and every American citizen’s earnest desire to contribute to the goodness of the world around. Two leaders, and two masses, two vision, and two kinds of response to the masses. No doubt I was touched by the audience, especially when the Pontiff went on addressing the people of different languages in their own languages, tirelessly going on for about one hour and ten minutes. But I could see that there was something amiss at the hall.

One of the biggest differences between these two great leaders is that the president of the USA has been elected by the citizens of the country, and the toil and sweat of thousands have gone in making of this man, and today he is determined to bring to fruition what he had promised during his campaigns, and he has already reiterated his determination to do so in the days to come. That is so very different in the case of the Pontiff, who had been elected by the College of the Cardinals, and it would be very difficult to say if the cardinals had the consent (even in a very remote way) of the people they represented! Granted that the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit, who works at the heart of every person, but unfortunately we have come to consider that the Spirit can inspire one section of the hierarchical church better than the hoi poploi. No wonder, more than sixty per centage of the Catholics of the subcontinent don’t even know the name of their bishops, leave alone the Pope. This is the world we live in, and I feel it hard to believe we still believe in such a world.

I might sound quite critical about the Church I belong to, and the way how things are done. Sometimes I recall to mind the story of Peter and John walking into the Jerusalem temple after the resurrection of the Lord, and the paralytic looking upto them hoping to get a coin or two, and Peter tells him that they did not have neither silver nor gold to offer. But with the power of the name of Jesus, they restored health to the sick. The church is very different; at least the Vatican cannot say that it did not have silver and gold. The wealth that belong to the Vatican can feel millions of hungry stomachs in Africa and Asia, but still we will never dare to raise this question, because we would like to be faithful Christians, who accept the authority of the Vicar of Christ, as flowing from Christ himself. If Peter had walked the streets of Jerusalem, can his successor do the same. Is the Popeomobile a requisite while he visits a poor nation, or he could use the local secure conveyance, and spare the huge expenses involved in transporting the special vehicle!

I would sound heretic if I were to say that the Church today is every Christian, who believe in Christ and follow his footsteps faithfully, and if I believe in Christ and his teachings, sadly, sometimes I am compelled to distance myself from the madding crowds who believe that is what Christ would want of them. I would like to pause for a while, even as I am just a few kilometers from Vatican, and think what Christ wants of his Church today? What sort of leadership would Christ envisage for his successors, those who stand in his place? But before I point my finger at the Pope, let me look deep into myself, and ask how can I be a leader of the people I am sent to. At least there is one indication for sure; if the people I serve can pronounce my name, then I will know that I am close to them; because I know for sure, people will bother to remember the names of only the persons who matter to them, whom they love. And some of them not only write the names of their humble and simple leaders in their hearts, but carve their names in the hearts of everyone they come in touch with, and that is the reward of every sincere leader. (Rome)