Failure is Sand, Washed Away by Time
This is a guest post written by Ananya K. and edited by me.
This time last year, I was a science student in 12th grade. It was by far the toughest year of my young life.
Seriously, I don’t say that lightly. I’m living alone in a different country right now and it is nowhere as hard.
When I look back, I can see why it was so hard. Multiple stressful things came together into a cocktail of suck. College applications were due, 12th board exams were in a few months, and I didn’t feel the support of my school and my family. Every day was a huge boulder I had to push to an unreachable mountain top.
It only got worse as we got closer to March. Every day, I thought I was the most stressed I could be, only for the next day to prove me wrong. I would rather the exams just be over with, because the anticipation and the repeated revisions were numbing my brain. It felt inescapable.
Somehow I got through the exams, and then we went from the hell of exam anticipation to the purgatory of waiting for results. It would be a month before I got them. I’d scored 85%.
Looking back on it, 85% isn’t bad at all! In fact, it is perfectly acceptable as it got me into the college I’m studying in right now. However, at the time, if my relatives are to be believed, I had committed a crime. I had brought shame to the family name, shot a puppy, and upturned the puja thali.
Failure can feel like a meteor crashing into your world, creating a deep crater that feels impossible to climb out of. When results were declared, I waited an entire 2 hours before telling my parents the news. It felt like my life had ended and there was nothing I could do to fix it. I couldn’t change the outcome however hard I tried.
In the moment, it felt insurmountable. But it sorted itself out. My family’s disappointment at my results faded after a while and I got accepted into a school. Here I am in my dorm during a Canadian December, writing about this with no trouble in my heart.
But what would have happened if the school had rejected me after my results? That would have horribly sucked, but it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. There are a number of things I could have done:
Gone to a different school.
Taken a year off to learn a skill (unlikely but possible).
Reapplied to the same school and waited to see what they say.
Failure feels like a stone fortress, but it is not. It is loose sand, and it is washed away by time. You only have to bear it in the moment, and it won’t be as hard afterwards.
So, how do you bear it?
First, breathe a little. We are conditioned to look for solutions immediately to get out of the problem as quickly as possible. But when we do that, we can forget to forgive ourselves. Try to sit with the moment. It will feel like your heart has fallen to your stomach but it definitely isn’t as bad as you think it is. It’s fine. Things are more okay than you think. You made a mistake, you’re human.
Next, tell someone who you know is not going to make you feel worse about this. It could be your grandparents, siblings, or your best friend. Other people tend to believe in us more than we do. By confiding in someone supportive, the paralysis of your fear will fade away.
Finally, when you feel calmer, project forward. Think about how you will feel a year from now. It really helped me to think about where I would be in December of this year. It helps dilute the tension of the current time and gives you something to look forward to.
Above all, give yourself the grace of a hopeful future. It’s hard, but with a little courage, a little self-love, and a dash of pragmatism, you will climb out of the meteor hole. And waiting for you beyond the lip of the hole is something good.
Author Bio: Ananya K. is a biology student currently slumming it in Canada. She enjoys playing D&D, if only so she can throw fireballs at enemies. You can’t reach her; don’t reach out to her. You can however listen to her Everyday People episode.