Importance of failure

  
Nobody would disagree that addiction is bad b'coz it is usually associated with narcotics, alcoholism etc. So the word "addiction" is generally perceived in a negative sense, irrespective of the context (addiction to which thing;  pleasure, substance, or person).

Why is it perceived to be so? Perhaps b'coz even though you feel pretty elated and high while being hooked to your addiction or while experiencing it but you feel utterly devastated when you don’t get what you are addicted to. And you fear the moment when you wont get what you are badly addicted to. One will do almost anything to fulfill his/her addiction, b'coz craving for addiction is usually very high.

is tea/coffee an addiction? P'bly we know very few addictions; how about lifestyle, power, praise? or cereals, salt? Addiction to internet? How about addiction to so called positive things: meditation, adventurism or even social service? How about addiction to something as positive as success? What could be ill effects of such a habit? Well, I think habit of success makes one weak by not exposing him to ample amount of "failures" which is an essential, unavoidable part of life. So, it makes the "fear to fail" even more deadly. You can imagine someone who tops in his class and fails in an exam; he feels the worst, most embarrassed, most disturbed  in the whole class b'coz he was addicted to success; he finds it difficult to handle his own failure, to accept his failure. Will being addicted to success make one averse to risk taking, to undertake steps where chances of failure may be substantial? Will it restrict one from trying new, daring things in life? Won't being averse to risks take out the "adventure" out of life?

And without adventure, life is like a boring journey that you have been told to complete. Someone rightly said "life is not how many breaths you took in life but it's about being through the moments that took your breadth away!!"

When I was a child, say in 1998, my father gave me an article to read from Sunday magazine section of The Tribune newspaper. Main purpose of me reading a full page article in those days was to improve my linguistic skills. The article was about a lady who had always been numero-uno throughout her life; school topper in childhood, then college topper and then university topper. She got the most coveted job at university (a bank job) and even a life-partner of her choice. Problems started later when she couldn't afford to be second to her own husband who was more successful than her; which resulted in a strained relationship and ended up in divorce. It made her more aloof, less social, even though more hardworking. Final blow came at the workplace when she was expected by all to be promoted as head of her department but (perhaps looking at her restricted social attitude) her colleague was given the opportunity. Obviously, she was not at all prepared to handle her failures and ended up being a heart patient and was still recovering in hospital when the article was written.

That day, I didn't think much about story and underlying message but somehow the story got registered in memory. May be today, I can comprehend it better.

So, to develop an all-round personality one must have been through a fair share of failures. I think this has been realized at least by some corporate HRs, whom I heard asking in interviews "Tell me about the greatest failure that you ever had in your life and how you came over it". I think it will be better if we realize the importance of failing, take it beyond preparing responses for interviews and actually start embracing adventurous activities which involve risk of failure.