Failing was worth!

When it comes to the matter of failure and success, I do always remember and cite the saying of a great scientist: Thomas Alba Edison- “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

If you ask me, as a student, whether you call it my arrogance or childishness, I have always considered myself an extraordinarily talented one. Why do I not? Because most of the time, it was I who used to get cent percent scores, whether it was in Maths or in Science in my class. Whether it was an inter-school poetry competition or a district-wide essay competition, I used to be the one often at the top of the champions. Every single teacher, student, and staff member of my school called me ‘the genius of the geniuses!’ Many times, I did get their compliments!

Neither Geometry nor Accountancy- or let’s say there was not a single topic that I would need to study twice! All was a cup of tea for me-I thought, I expected. ‘Failure’ was something that I had never expected to encounter, owing to my ‘extraordinarily talented nature’. It was something, I considered, that would never interrupt the success-woven path I was leading. I was proved wrong, anyway!

I vividly remember the day, which was indeed, I call, the toughest time I had to bear. It was when I was in my grade eight, the exam day of ‘Computer Studies’, our last exam of the then-going District Level Examination (DLE). While in the exam, after I read the question paper, all of a sudden, I found my mind going blank! I tried hard but couldn’t even think of how to start. All the questions but their answers seemed familiar. The genius of all, I, became helpless then! Not a single answer struck my mind. And it was all the way after the first-hour bell had gone, I then realized it was the previous insomniac night’s effect that I had spent watching ‘The Tale of Jack’! I was full of remorse at wasting my time watching a movie late at night and being overconfident about excelling in the exam with zero preparation the next day.

A few days later, the results were out. I was handed my maiden marksheet with an asterisk (*). At that moment, tears rolled down my cheeks, and that bitter taste of the salty water of my eyes is still fresh in my tongue. My life would never be the same again, I realized numbly. It was for the whole day I continued crying till Baba (my father) took me into his arms and narrated the story of the failure and success of the very Edison. His every word kept resonating around my mind. Even the great people of the centuries were once ‘the failures’ in their lives, so I mustn’t utter the cry of despair- I got reconciled, though it was hard.

Had I not failed that day, I think I would have never realized the real meaning of ‘a lost time’ and the hazards of being overconfident. That is why today too I say- “Of course, the failing was worth it!”