Fear of failure || Acharya Prashant (2023)

Acharya Prashant

Full Video: How to overcome rejections and failures? || Acharya Prashant, with Delhi University (2023)  Link:    • How to overcome rejections and failur...     ‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant?  Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...    Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?  Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...    Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl...  ➖➖➖➖➖➖   Video Information: 17.03.23, Delhi University (Online), Greater Noida   Context:  ~ How to overcome fear of failure?  ~ How to understand the fear and how to get rid of it?  ~ What are victory and defeat?  ~ How to know real success?  ~ How to face challenges in life?  ~ How to be fearless?  ~ Why do we fear failure?  ~ How to overcome fear?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00What is it that you love playing?

00:06Any sports you are interested in?

00:07I love cricket.

00:08You love cricket.

00:09Tell me of something that you are just not interested in.

00:14I am not interested in basketball.

00:17And somebody just pushes you hard to become the top basketball player in the country.

00:32And you prepare and train for six months just because you have been pushed to do all that.

00:46And then you go for the trials and selections and you are rejected there.

00:54Should you be depressed or should you celebrate?

01:05So in that case I will just try again.

01:08You will try again for something you have no heart in?

01:13I will try something that my heart goes into in the first place.

01:16So how do you deal with that rejection?

01:18You got into, you went to basketball trials.

01:24And you went to basketball trials just because, let's say, your family told you that it is

01:29a tradition in our family.

01:32We all have been basketball players.

01:36That's your grandpa.

01:37Look at the huge thing in his hand.

01:39That's supposed to be basketball.

01:43Then that's your granny.

01:47She too was a basketball player, the top one in her village.

01:55So it's a tradition.

01:56You have to do it.

01:58So you go for it and you try for six months and then you get rejected.

02:06Apply your wits.

02:08Is it a matter of mourning or celebration?

02:18That's how you deal with rejections.

02:21You anyway never wanted those things.

02:29So many people write the UPSC.

02:31The fact is they actually never wanted to clear it in the first place.

02:50When I was writing one of these exams, I do not remember which one, one of the all India

02:56exams, probably UPSC, UPSC civil services, I think my father, he said, the number of

03:05candidates that are appearing appears to be in several lakhs.

03:12But it's not against several lakhs you are competing.

03:16The number of seats that particular year had been drastically reduced 200 or 300 seats.

03:25That's all.

03:26The number of applicants was what, 5, 8, 10 lakhs something.

03:33Then you are not competing with those many.

03:37For these 200 seats you are competing with at most 2 to 4000 students, applicants.

03:46Because the others are anyway appearing for namesake.

03:54They have filled up the form because their fathers wanted them to or because they had

04:00nothing else, nothing better to do in life.

04:04And everybody was all the time poking them, what are you doing, what are you busy with?

04:14So they filled up the form and now they can respectfully say, I am a UPSC aspirant.

04:25If these people get rejected, why must they be depressed?

04:30You anyway never wanted it.

04:33Are you getting it?

04:37It appears amusingly stupid to not to want something and then get depressed upon not

04:50getting it.

04:54Think of the situation.

04:55There is something that you never heartfully wanted.

05:00Had you heartfully wanted it, there is a great probability you would have obtained it.

05:08The fact is you were pushed into it or you just drifted into it.

05:15Knowing nothing else to do, you just drifted into it.

05:19Some unconscious type of desire pushed you towards a particular target or object.

05:32Your heart was never into it, your consciousness, your discretion was never into it.

05:39And that's the primary reason you don't get it.

05:42Obviously, there can be other reasons also.

05:47But the primary reason generally is that you never put your whole energy, your entire

05:55self into it because that was not something that you loved from your core.

06:09The kind of energy that is needed to uplift life can arise only from a loving core.

06:20In some sense, it is only love that can never be defeated or is very very hard to defeat.

06:28That which you call as normal desire is so easy to defeat.

06:33You are desirous of one thing.

06:37The salesman displays something more attractive to you.

06:40What do you do?

06:42Your desire immediately flips or does it not?

06:49The same thing does not apply to love.

06:54Because love involves consciousness.

06:59You have chosen something after due discretion.

07:06You are going for something because you know that the thing is indispensable.

07:16It's not just random whim, fad, fetish.

07:23It's a thing of the heart.

07:25I know myself, I know what I need and I have to go after it.

07:31Now, who can stop me?

07:37Mostly, your rejections are worth celebrating.

07:59Those were needless burdens, responsibilities put upon you by authoritarian and deceptive forces.

08:24Indian poet Kabir Das, there is a beautiful one from him, Bhala hua meri matki bhooti,

08:35ab mai paniya bharan se chhuti.

08:39He is not getting depressed.

08:40He is celebrating.

08:42And if somebody else had put this pot on my head and entrusted me with the responsibility

08:51to daily fetch water from some far away well or tank or something.

08:59And my success was to be measured against my quickness in fetching the water and the

09:10fullness of the pot that was supposed to be a determinant of how successful my life is.

09:19If I can quickly rush and fetch a lot of water and make multiple trips to that well,

09:23get a lot of water and do that quite rapidly, then I would be declared successful.

09:30But even if the world declares me successful because of all this pot business, does that

09:37fulfill my core?

09:39Does it?

09:42So one day that pot falls and breaks.

09:49And the poet sings, bhala hua meri matki bhooti, great that I have now been defeated, ab mai

09:58paniya bharan se chhuti.

10:01This was an external imposition.

10:03This is not something I was doing out of love.

10:09An artificial duty had been imposed on me.

10:12You have to be successful this way.

10:15Great that now I have met defeat.

10:19Kindly relieve me, declare me a failure, tattoo it on my forehead and let me go.

10:28I am okay.

10:30Call me a defeat, call me a failure, call me a reject, call me whatever you want to,

10:40but spare me.

10:41Let me live freely.

10:49On the other hand, if your target is arising from your core, then it is the love for the

10:58target that keeps you going all your life.

11:03There can be no rejection because there is always a continuous attempt.

11:10So how can you be depressed?

11:15You want something so wholeheartedly that you will never stop trying for it.

11:19Now tell me where is the rejection?

11:22Tell me where is the final failure?

11:27And that's probably the only way to live, especially as a young person, to be in love.

11:36To do something only because it deserves to be done and it's so lovely, so compelling,

11:45so beautiful that it becomes irresistible.

11:49You cannot not do it.

11:52You cannot not love it.

11:54Now tell me where is failure?

12:00So the problem does not lie in defeat or failure or rejection.

12:07The problem lies in the choice of the goal.

12:10Are you getting it?

12:12The question has to be where are your goals coming from?

12:18How did something become your goal?

12:21How have you started wanting something?

12:25How exactly does that happen?

12:29And the quality of your choice depends on the quality of your being, the quality of

12:34the chooser within.

12:37If you are inwardly asleep, then all your choices will arise from very nebulous, very

12:47vague kind of criteria.

12:51They would not be choices in the real sense of the word.

13:00They would be like the toss of a dice, a three could show up, one could show up, six

13:07could show up.

13:08Have you chosen?

13:09It's a blind toss.

13:10Anything can show up.

13:14You have not chosen something.

13:16Randomly stuff is happening with you and in biological life there is only randomness,

13:24just randomness.

13:30In conscious life, there is conscious choice arising from a single criteria and that criteria

13:42is freedom.

13:46Randomness has no criteria.

13:47If there is some criteria, it can no more be called randomness.

13:53In internal life, there has to be a single criteria, a single criteria against which

13:59you determine your choices.

14:01What is that criteria?

14:03Freedom, betterment, liberation, growth.

14:07Is this making me better?

14:10Is this widening, deepening my consciousness?

14:15Am I learning something from this?

14:19Am I becoming more fearless out of this?

14:23That's what should determine the choice.

14:29And when your choices come from there, then you can take defeats in your stride.

14:36Then you say, fine, it's a lifelong journey.

14:43It's something I have to continuously do.

14:46It's such a humongous project, it can never get over.

14:49Will you ever say that your love for something has exhausted?

14:55You don't want to say that, right?

14:57So the project has to be an eternal one.

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