Cheers to our failures, Cheers to our disappointments.

I have always wondered about the nature of frustration, dissatisfaction and hunger to achieve something and that betrayed feeling of not achieving it afterwards.

Was it lack of dedication? Any shortcoming which one was not aware of? Or what? Well, we can't really define our failures from the subjective point of view. As far as an objective view is concerned, we are quick to judge and spot erros in others, and sometimes lament, sometimes amuse at it.

"I guess no one can teach this to a child, but life is a series of grave disappointments, and growth, I guess, is the manner in which you endure them and walk past them. But you can't tell this to people--to children, to friends, to hopefuls in your midst--because they want, and probably deserve, happiness and satisfaction and present friends and just rewards. They have to fall down and be hurt and be bewildered like the rest of us. And we have to be there for them."

     --Marlon Brando

Swami Vivekananda's insights on failure are quite remarkable.

Whenever failure comes, if we analyse it critically, in ninety-nine per cent of cases we shall find that it was because we did not pay attention to the means. 

Proper attention to the finishing, strengthening, of the means is what we need. With the means all right, the end must come. We forget that it is the cause that produces the effect; the effect cannot come by itself; and unless the causes are exact, proper, and powerful, the effect will not be produced.

Once the ideal is chosen and the means determined, we may almost let go the ideal, because we are sure it will be there, when the means are perfected. When the cause is there, there is no more difficulty about the effect, the effect is bound to come. If we take care of the cause, the effect will take care of itself. The realisation of the ideal is the effect. The means are the cause: attention to the means, therefore, is the great secret of life.

 We also read this in the Gita and learn that we have to work, constantly work with all our power; to put our whole mind in the work, whatever it be, that we are doing. At the same time, we must not be attached. That is to say, we must not be drawn away from the work by anything else; still, we must be able to quit the work whenever we want to.

I think that too much attachment to the ideal makes a gap, a bridge between our  dreamy thoughts and required actions. Therein are holes formed, and the plane crashes, expectations nosedive.

Carl Jung puts that very beautifully,

  "You are what you do. Not what you say you'll                                         do."

Again,

All the spiritual traditions of the world emphasis on selfless work, unattached action.

But how ironic it is, that the entire world is fueled by unsatisfied desires of 8 billion individuals, who constantly work their asses off to achieve them.

"Against all odds, against all handicaps, against the chamber of horrors we call history, man has continued to dream and to depict its opposite. That is what we have to do. We do not escape into philosophy, psychology, and art—we go there to restore our shattered selves into whole ones."   ~Anaïs Nin 

A person fulfilling his desires, along with that, remaining an absolutely unattached worker is clearly a person walking on a razor's edge.

"..If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same.. "

"If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

...Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!"

Yes, so I believe the only solution to failures and disappointments is courage, fearlessness, unbounded optimism to carry on.

The Bhagvad Geeta says,

"उद्धरेदात्मनात्मानं नात्मानमवसादयेत् |

आत्मैव ह्यात्मनो बन्धुरात्मैव रिपुरात्मन: || 5||"

"Let a man be lifted up by his own self; let him not lower himself; for he himself is his friend, and he himself is his enemy."

And thus, we come to an end of our today's blog, where we melted down and shattered the negativity and degradation that countless humans feel at any stage of their life. 

“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.”

Thanks,

Daksh Parekh.