FEAR of Failure??!!

Hi Friends

After a hiatus, i am back in dabbling with my second blog which by itself is the  most controversial, hot, unacceptable, soul searching, soul stirring.... topic. Yes FEAR of Failure. The choice of the font is not accidental but designed that way. The word FEAR is capitalised which is bigger than the failure most of the times and the symbols after the word failure denotes what fear?? Me having the fear?? and then when one does the soul searching or the near or dear one makes the individual to traverse the depth or the thought of fear there is an exclamation or a sigh ...

Let me not play with words or punctuation and try to attempt to decode, decipher the topic. 

A few caveats for the readers ( if at all you read this) 

• this is just my view culminating out of my experience
• this is no silver bullet or medication or if i may say "one size fits all"
• if it resonates with your views well and good, if it does not, feel free to share with me, we can have dialogues to mutually find a common ground
• If it hits you hard, then it's not my intention.
• This topic is not new at all but the beauty is that many do not acknowledge if one has fear and many do not implement when they are aware they have such a feeling... that is the prime reason why i thought i can share my view

When does an individual gets introduced/ made aware/ institutionalise/internalise/ befriend FEAR?

This happens right from the childhood when the child attempts a few baby steps. No parent, especially a mother will allow her child to fall during this phase. Completely understandable. The baby understands and gets educated during the Child phase of Do's and Dont's, Right and Wrong. The learnings and experience is continuous and it gets registered in the sub cutaneous issues in middle oblongata? ( forget and pardon my ignorance) in common man's parlance in the Child's Brain..

While each parent goes through this phase ritually with ofcourse love and care , they do infuse their thoughts and fears without their knowledge and this is the starting point...

The child masters cycling by falling, learns swimming by drowning is it not? Have you noticed that the rate of learning for a child is much much faster than an adult with respect to cycling and swimming?? Introspect... because it does not have the fear of failure and is not self conscious... 

Can we say then  falling from a bicycle and not learning to float or swim are failures?? 

The parents play a bigger part in this phase,  as they are the ones who introduce, internalise and institutionalise FEAR of failure. Let's analyse why?

1. They pass their baton ( fear of failure ofcourse what else?)  thinking that it's their prime duty
2. Their inability to surmount the fear of failure , or experiment with the options
3. The so called Society, peer pressure and what not.. Snobbishness, ignorance, herd mentality... hmm what to say...
4. Fear of maintaining success
5. Ignorance of game theory/ probability
6. Rabid reactions when the child fails.. 
7. Do not encourage or teach to fight against the ODDS

The fail safe mechanism, success is the only way to survive, snobbish tendency to brag about their ward's capabilities/ranks, benchmarking the child against the visible candidates who have tasted success ( by design or chance no child knows or even dare to ask ), despise and abhor the junta who according to them or not successful, warning the child not be to associated with the junta.. Phoof!! what a tortuous  and a tumultuous journey into the puberty for a child. 

The Other Enablers of Fear of Failure

• The neighbours, the extended family, the so called well wishers 
• the educational system especially the School teachers and Principals.
• the educated and the successful friends of the BOY/GIRL ( school days are about to end )
• The Boy/Girl ( will be referred as the victim)

Lets take one example which stands out as a Plume in the cap of Fear of failure, the choice of the under graduation of the victim. 

Engineering: It's seeing to believe especially in South india, wherein the victim needs to attend coaching classes to enter into a coaching institute which coaches you again to face the entrance examination. This is like the snake like queues you find outside of cricket/foot ball stadium, temples during the festival times... They catch the victim really young as the tiered or TIRED coaching starts when the victim is hardly 12 years... The day starts with books and ends with books.

Considering that today there are no public places to play or lack of time or willingness to play and socialise, they do that through App stores, surfing the social networking.. Where is the street life? Where are the seasonal games Goli ( Marbles) , Gilli Danda, Pambaram ( Tops), Police & Thief, 7 stones, Kite flying etc., Do even today's victim know these things... 

How much  can we relate to these games and i am sure we would have learnt the art of survival ( forget winning) is it not? The gupshup/ gossips   in the Tea kadai ( Tea shops) the battle creek brawls with friends/ opponents  and the famous reunions ....do they exist today? Street life teaches you how to face defeats, criticisms, survival skills, thinking on the feet, bouncing back capabilities, performing in unprotected environments, team spirit, conflict management, decision making,  friendship, breakups etc., No educational institution or parents for that matter can provide the learnings however simulated they are. 

Coming back to Engineering, the essence of Engineering is to learn &master an aspect of science or any particular field and then create a career around that field. Today Engineering is a path to find jobs mostly unrelated to the subjects the victim has studied. This where the disorientation starts and the victim is confronted with fear of failure. 

The Victim jumps into the bandwagon of IT as it gives a solace and temporary comfort. If he does not get a campus recruitment or an off campus, dabbles into a MBA and prays for Manna from Heaven to shower...

Final part  under construction.