Fail Once

Vanakkam.

What are you? Who are you? Where are you?

Answer all three. Is your answer something like this?

You are INVINCIBLE. You are God. You are in god damn heaven.

If that is the answer you got, then you can breathe now. Then have the audacity to fail once.

Winning Is a State. Winning Mindset Is a Journey.

We are so presumptuous that we think we should never fail in one attempt. We always want to win.

Wanting to win is a good mentality. But winning is just a state, and you have to achieve it again and again to stay there. A winning mindset is a journey, one where you are willing to put in all of your goodwill and work to get the best. This is a journey you should enjoy.

Most people are not willing to fail, because they don't have the winning mindset. What they have is a picture of the winning state that they imagined alone. They take no action for the win.

The actions that truly lead to a win are never about not losing. They are about giving your best in everything you do. Solve the problem in front of you.

The Martian

How many of you have watched The Martian? Chef's kiss. It is one of the finest movies I have ever seen, and I watched it when I was in a low phase of life.

It teaches you this: when you are the only person standing on a planet, what do you do to survive?

You don't just jump into that rover and drive to the next rocket, hoping to go back and live the rest of your life on Earth. You start analysing the near problem, the near practicality, the near reality, and you solve them one by one:

Communication. Food. Water. Energy. Weather.

That is the winning mindset. What will get me, as a full human body, to the next rocket ship that will take me back to Earth?

By the way, I highly recommend everyone watch this movie at least once in their lifetime.

Look at the Same Horizon

We are not gods who landed on Earth for a vacation. We are humans, each here for our own purpose, and each of us is connected to everyone else.

Go outside and look. You will see many reflections of yourself, all trying to live their lives and survive.

I am not asking you to look at someone above you or below you. I am asking you to look at someone on the same horizon as you, someone you can relate to, someone who is just like you.

You will find plenty. To be precise, you will find 7.5 billion people, roughly 90.4% of humanity. This is where most of us live.

The remaining 10% know who they are. 5% know they are dead poor. The other 5% know they will die either poor or rich.

The 90% want to win on the first attempt. They lose each time, and they stay there in the 90%.

The Safe-Bet Mindset

They might say, "You are blessed to have a roof. You are blessed to have food, water, clothes, and family."

I agree.

But I do not agree with the mindset behind it. That mindset isn't telling you, "You have everything now, so go and conquer the world." It is telling you, "You have enough. Stay where you are. Take the safe bets."

And I strongly say: that is wrong.

As humans, we always try to stay safe. Why? Because we slowly changed our minds from hunters to eaters. We have become consumers, and consumable for others. More precisely, we consume each other: gossip, words, problems, and lives.

Built for a Destination

So what are we built for?

We are not built for milestones. We are built for a destination. And the purpose of that destination is to build yourself and the people around you.

When I say this, I am not saying this world is going to become the most beautiful place. What I wish for is to form communities and societies that set an example, ones that prove humanity only lives on by humanising victory, not through ego and self-pride.

Failure Was Never an Option

So failure was never an option. Yes, failure was never an option.

It was always a choice.

Not an option to be taken, but a choice to make: to fail once, to learn, to get the essence of winning, and to find the right track to winning.

Winning was the option all along. Why? Because you either win, or you learn. Failure just came with it.

Go Fail

Go ahead. Fail once. Taste the bitterness of failure.

If you are smart and intelligent, you will be courageous enough to fail many times. That is your cadence for upholding the self in you with a winning mindset.

Get yourself up and fail more than once, only to reach the winning destination. You were born to reach the destination, not the milestones.

Get up. Go fail in all the ways you can, so that you know what winning is.

And think about this too: you failed somewhere, and that's why you are here as a human.

Think twice. Fail. And accept failure.

வெள்ளத் தனைய இடும்பை அறிவுடையான்
உள்ளத்தின் உள்ளக் கெடும்.

— Thirukkural 622

A tide of troubles will recede the moment an intelligent person's mind collects itself to face them. This verse means that when we have mental stability and wisdom, we can overcome any hardship that comes at us like waves.