When I learned ‘failing’ is not the end of the world!
By: Meera M
Tags: Getting Back Up, Failure, Facing Failure, Parenting, Success

Image by Ulrike Mai from Pixabay

Back when I had just got into an engineering college, the first year was spent learning about all the different branches in engineering. Though I had opted for Computer Sciences, the first year we had to learn about Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, Electronics; a bit about everything.

I was never up for the Strauss and bending of a beam. And mechanics, was all about civil engineering. It wasn’t really a subject I took interest to. It eventually showed when I flunked the paper. It happened to be the first set of exams in college. It was the first ever “flunked” status on my bio.

I was upset. I had never failed a paper before. I was one of those straight A kids at school. This was heart breaking for me. I could not believe that I failed. I remember crying so bad that day. My eyes kept getting moist every time I though about having flunked. It was not the fear of facing my parents, my parents don’t know about it till date. They never asked. It was about failing myself. I had never experienced something like that before.

But today, more than the failure, it is the words of a friend which has stuck to me. He was a student who had joined a little later than the normal batch. Reason- he was asked to leave his previous college due to misbehavior. He had spend three years at the earlier college and was now starting fresh with us. He recounted the whole incident to me that day and said — ” You know what your problem is — you don’t know what failure is. You don’t know how to face it. You don’t know that failing is not the end of the world. You’ve just flunked a paper. All you need to do is prepare harder next time. “

I felt humiliated when he said that in front of everyone. I wanted to hide myself. I disliked that guy for what he said. But honestly, after getting back to my room, I thought about what he said. He had it harder. He lost three years of his life (of course he was responsible), but he chose to try again. He must have had a harder time coming to the decision to repeat his course again after being dismissed from his previous college.

Though it took me a while to accept it, I believe that was one of the best advices I’ve got. I’ve never had a chance to tell him that, because we really did not get along much in college. But I will forever be thankful to him for what he said.

Today as a mother, I’ve held onto that lesson. I believe every parent needs to prepare their children for failure. Let them fail, let them fall a few times. Help them get up and face it. We should prepare our children to face failures than become perfect champions who have never failed. We have to let them fail, so that they are never scared to fail. So that they are never worried about failure.

It does not mean that we encourage them to fail. We can encourage them to fight back, we can encourage them to get back up when they fall. We have to help our children face the heat on their own rather than support them constantly so that they never have to see failure.

It is okay to fail, failure is not the end of the world. All you need to do is try harder next time !!

Image by Ulrike Mai from Pixabay