Each of us have defined our own happiness. We work towards achieving a goal that we think is our ultimate happiness. This could mean money, family, career, service, travel or anything—to each their own.
When we do attain this set goal, we find happiness. We smile as broadly as possible, we celebrate and if
you are anything like me, you will even do your ugly happy dance.
Every day we work to find our happiness and when we do get there, we push the goal a little further away to keep us working. This way, we have our lives figured out. However, inevitably, in a matter of time, we all hit failure. We reach rock bottom; it could be emotional or physical but it shakes us up completely.
On the whole, life can be split into three phases—the chase, the attainment and the fall. All these phases
are repetitive and they occur in no specific order. Analysing them all separately, the chase is the calm and uneventful part of life.
During this phase we are all dreamers; we dream of what could be and work blindly towards it. It gives us purpose, meaning and hope. We know what’s in store for us and slowly, yet meticulously, we grind ourselves to get there.The next phase is the attainment. It is the fruit of our toil—the end goal, the bliss. It is delightful when we get here. It is all we have wanted. Those several days and nights that we spent dreaming have now finally materialised. All is well.
The third and final phase is the most beautiful—the fall. The previous two phases are completely predictable, whereas it is this fall or failure in life that hits you when you are not expecting it. Failure is the opportunity to reassess things, a time to analyse life from a different perspective. We have to see failure as a surprise and not as a shock.
In this mad rush of life, we have been running breathlessly. Do we even know what we are moving towards? If we do, how much do we want it right now? We fear failure because we don’t want to question ourselves; we fear failure because we don’t want to test ourselves.