You see failure, I see Awakener

Yes, you, I am talking to you. Don’t look at the back.
Am I talking to the wooden walls?
Why are you laughing? (Pause) Come tell us the joke, we’ll laugh too. 

Any guesses, whom I am referring to?
YES, it’s OUR TEACHERS or shall I say our AWAKENERS

When I say the word teacher the first image that comes to our mind is homework, tests, high pitch sound and their standard jargons, like

AM I MAKING SENSE is all they ask but the truth is that they don’t.
"Give me a blue pen of any color". This is what happens when the Hindi teacher tries her hand at English.

Do you think we are behind? We have our own bank of code words to lighten the serious school environment. And I am not going to open the pandora box right now? 😄

Well, jokes apart. Regardless of what we say and think about them, teachers play a pivotal role in our lives. They mould our personality, boost our morale, show us our real worth and support us through thick and thin. They are like a compass and activate the magnets of curiosity, knowledge and wisdom in us. Sometimes they may be disciplinarians, or even harsh but they are our awakeners. 

The Little Master Sachin Tendulkar and PV Sindhu would not be the same had they not got the coaching and guidance from their guru Ramakant Achrekar and Gopichand. Everyone may not be as fortunate as they are, but we are lucky that one amazing teacher is common to you and me and this teacher has shaped many great pupils like – JK Rowling who failed many times before writing a successful book, Who doesn’t know Harry Potter; and like Thomas Edison who invented the bulb after 1000 unsuccessful attempts. Any guesses who this special teacher is?

Yes – its failure.
Failure is common to all of us. It is a great teacher. 

Interestingly, failure responds to you the way you respond to it. If you are overwhelmed by failure, it can be the worst thing. But if you learn from it, it can be the best thing that can happen to you. 

Do you remember the Rabbit and the turtle race? The Rabbit could go into depression after losing to the turtle but if it learned not to sleep over and remain agile until the race is over, he would emerge as the winner always. Failure is a teacher who won’t just teach you to Bounce Back but to Bounce Back Better.

Let me share my experience with you 

Back in grade 4, I went for my first skating competition. Any guesses which position I held?
Nothing.
Infact, I slipped and hurt myself. I came out of the rink, weeping with my whole leg injured and I knew that I wasn’t made for this. However, my father came to me right away and congratulated me. He said “Mannat, You see it as failure, but I see it as an Awakener. Let’s celebrate your first slip, celebrate your first injury”. First, I lost…. Second, I got hurt…. Why in the world would I celebrate that? I didn’t do it, so he made me celebrate it in his own style. He took me to Mcdonalds and bought me my favourite burger. This, my friends gave me a boost and I participated in many more skating competitions in future, practiced to the best I could and became a national champion. 🏅

To conclude, I love Failure because it is easy to fail 😅 Just kidding, I love failure because it is easy to learn from it and achieve success.

Like we have a bittersweet relationship with our teachers, we should have a similar relation with failure too. 

From today, make your Failures Funny! Giggle so hard at it that the feeling of shame, remorse is replaced by an understanding that failure is a part of life to teach us life.

Let us make a promise. Next time if we get less marks than our expectations, fail to succeed in whatever pursuit we take up or don’t get into our dream college, we will not be disheartened, but will celebrate, learn and try again. 

Let us take this moment to rechristen Failure - First Attempt in learning as an “AWAKENER” and should joyfully proclaim "I met an awakener and learnt a beautiful lesson."

Are you ready to make failure your friend… I am! Are you?