Mistakes, Stepping Stones to Success?

lijoe's picture

I was just 3 years old, my mom took me to a kinder garden school in Kuwait. The teachers there tried to test my my grasping level. They found I could not cope up... I was 4 years old, my mom took me to 3-4 different schools hoping I would get admission somewhere. At one school, the principal said, Madam, “Your son has some learning disability, he is not yet ready to be admitted to school with his level of mental development. “

My mom pleaded and in one school, Indian School Kuwait, I can still see the exact location of that school, its like a map in my head, at Salmiya, they felt sorry for my mom and took me in. I dont know, I was not excited at all by the prospects of school, I failed miserably. I had teachers throwing chalks at me even dusters because they were frustrated by my inability to grasp. My mom spent countless time trying to make me do some semblance of English Cursive writing. Those were the pressure days, the pinches, the amount of tears and the head aches...

I survived it, and like some re-transformation, when I entered my third standard, the failure called Lijoe started scoring 100% marks. I was too much of a child to understand what was happening, suddenly I could grasp things, memory was sharp, and I started seeing text book pages as photographs. Teachers were happy, parents were surprised. Suddenly I had people come and say, “Mistakes are the stepping stones to success.”

I used to think then and I think now, was it the mistakes that taught me to be better?

I am not very sure. I feel it was my hopes....

I always hoped that I could someday have become good. I wished to write cursive like my sister's did. I wanted to be admired like Sooraj Ramachandran, Nabeel Mohammed Ali, Rocky Balla, Nitin Gonsalves, Zianuddin (The toppers in my classes). For them life was like fairy tale; Class toppers, teachers' pets, role models, geniuses and what not. Here I was trying somehow to pass and for them they were sad, that one or the other over took them in studies by one mark !! :). I had a small circle of friends like Nobby Rajan, Don Zachriah and the likes. These were the kids who were like me, had no ambitions, just loved cartoons (Thundercats, Bionic Six, Small Wonder, Knight Rider, Street Hawk, Superman, Transformers, Gradizer (Arabic), Silver Hawks etc... and WWF and we did have a nice time practicing WWF, playing robber-police etc..

But when the exams came, the geniuses would scare us. Here we were trying some semblance of studying and there they were extra cool. Anyway those days were real scary.

18 years down the line, sitting and working at Poornam , I hear this dialog again. I smile, is it these mistakes that have made us great. Mistakes have taught us what we should not do next time, but its our hopes and our drive that makes us move a step up in life.

We do not need mistakes to make us realize the wrong. I recently heard someone quote, “ She decided to marry in a hurry, she made the choice, its her mistake, let her live with it, deal with it!”


I thought is that so, is Marriage the only institution where a mistake cannot be forgiven and we cannot back out from? Do we marry, learn our mistakes, divorce and then lead our lives? Are we living for someone else or ourselves. Yes our parents wish success from us, yes they would like to see us married, they would love to have a big function with everyone invited. But is it right for them to say live with so and so person for the rest of your lives even if you do not want that? Just to keep your head up.


I believe because parents brought us up, they have a right from us to take care of them. We should also do things that will make them happy. But at the same time as long as I am not doing wrong* why should my parents feel agitated. Parents have in some cases forced us to do whatever we have done. Some of it is the reason why we have succeeded in life. But at same time, is marriage something like that? It involves two people , two families, two mentalities who should adjust with each other. Can it be like the car we choose, the field of study we choose or even like the way we dress?

In a way this is the person who is going to replace your parents for you so that you can start the next stage of your life. Would you want to choose here or will you learn everything from experience and live like trapped or divorce? I am not questioning the institution called marriage or arranged marriages. I believe arranged marriages are good too, but time has to be given to understand if the other person is what your looking for or not. We spend days, to select a house, a car, even a shirt that costs Rs.500. What about a wife, if you take less than 10 minutes of knowing and one week of marriage, is it not the biggest foolish sacrifice you are doing? Is a shirt more valuable than the rest of your lives or is it because social status is involved in choosing, you choose in haste or is it simply society, status and instinct :).


Can you get out of that mistake? Well yes you can, but society ensures you get tagged for it, ensures it becomes the topic of poor blood line, impulse, etc and ensures everyone in your life is affected by the stigma. :) But if you have hope that its for a better life; that you decided to correct the mistake you did the first time, then go ahead, like I said, you succeed then! Don't let others make you feel that you need to squirm in your current existence because they chose so and so you should also choose the same..

After making a mistake or suffering a misfortune, the man of genius always gets back on his feet. --- Napoléon Bonaparte

Hope is what makes the world go round. Hope is what makes you wake up every morning and live another day. Hope is the one thing that comes from within and never from others.

* Wrong her means a) Blood relations b) Same Sex (I just dont believe marriage is needed for a person who is doing it out of feelings different from procreation that nature has given us).

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i agree a lot with u ... the

i agree a lot with u ... the institution of arranged marriages, blood lines... these are stuff beyond any reason or logic... other than one that the parents want to prove that i have bred a gold medal kid... one who stuck with me throughout his bachelorhood, and married the gal i asked him to marry... sucks .. sucks like hell

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