Success, failure and temporary feelings | Podcast #28 by Neha's Notebook

Failure is a Pandora’s box. It makes you feel pathetic. It makes you feel like you are a nobody. But success too is equally a pandora’s box. Success is a complicated thing. Once you succeed, you get to think, “Phew, now I am somebody!” After all the effort and the work you put into something, you finally have that moment. But the moment you think you are somebody, the world hits on your chest with a hammer telling you that no, you are not a somebody. You are a nobody. Often, this hitting comes in the form of comparison. You get to see someone else who is doing far better than you. You thought that you have arrived somewhere but as you look outwards you feel that you are back to the drawing board.

And then you begin again, in a race to reach the point when you will again get to feel that you are a somebody. From somebody to nobody, from nobody to somebody, we are always spinning in this circle of time. When we observe this circle of time occuring inside us, it becomes easier to step out of it, and understand that both of these feelings, high and low, are simply parts of a process of life – a process of becoming better, of becoming wiser, of rising beyond temporary feelings and of keep going.  

Am I a somebody or am I a nobody? It’s just a matter of time. Otherwise, I am none of these. Its only my thinking that makes me a somebody at one point and a nobody at the other point of time.

If you allow people and comparisons to determine how you should feel about yourself then you will end up living an unsatisfactory, discontended and unhappy life. Whether you feel like a somebody or a nobody, remember that it’s just a matter of time. Both of these are temporary feelings and soon enough they will dissolve back into the space. But when they go, they leave us with a sense of re-understanding of our identity, which is more than a person or an individual flitting through the space-time. Remember, feelings are simply visitors, let them come as they come and let them go as they go. Understanding this enables us to manage these emotions.

The reality is that, you are not as bad as you think you are when you have failed, and you are not as good as you think you are when you have succeeded.

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