Failure

Failure .. I think its a scary word. It has always been so for me. If you scourge the net you will find a million quotes and stories saying why failure is important. Some samples:

• Failure is the key to success.
• Failing is better that doing nothing.
• Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success.
• Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

When you read or listen to these, it seems very nice. These sound even better when you talk to people who experienced failure - you feel your words will do them good. But when it actually hits you, none of this matters. A failure is failure. What you do after it, how you react, and how much it impacts you - it all depends on the individual. The 'nice' quotes never come to your mind, and they dont matter when people tell you the same stuff over & over again. To some, it would even hurt - "Do you think I don't know these things? Please shut up!!"

So what next? Deal with it YOUR way. What is your way? You have to figure it out. Some would just let it hurt till it does, till it goes away. Some would move on without a bother. And some would go nuts. I guess it also depends much on the magnitude of the failure and its impact. It could also depend on the reason of failure. It could also depend on intangibles like ego.

In my book, it would depend on how it changes your life. What would have happened if you had not failed and what will happen because you did. i.e. how hard it hit you. Food for thought, right?

Back from hibernation

After a long slumber, I am back. And I have a story - about what pushed me quicker to this page. While I was not 'writing' blogs, I was actually 'reading' blogs. And I read lots & lots of them. Some of those blogs became a habit (will put up a list sometime), and the list kept growing.

One blog which I used to read earlier (last year) was my ex-DM's blog. Now who is a DM? In simple words, the DM is the boss of the boss of my boss!! I stopped reading his blog after he went into hibernation, similar to what I did over two months, and I just thought I'll check if he's back. He indeed was, and that was 3 months back!

While I read all his blogs, there was one where he listed blogs of his friends with name of the author and the blog link. Obviously the list would have blogs which he likes. The last one (I think there were 6) was "Varun's blog" with a note saying "I misplaced the link. Varun, if you read this, send me the link again." That got me thinking. Was he talking about me? I didn't think so. Because we didn't know each other much and I didn't even know if he knew I had a blog!

But I could not resist the temptation and sent him an email, asking whom was he talking about. And soon he responded - it was indeed this blog he was referring to! I was surprised but very happy. And that also told me that I need to get back to writing ASAP.

So there you go. Time to start again. Especially for folks who read my blog. Thank you!!