I have had time to think about failure a lot these days.
For those who are unaware, I am a medical student. A product of a large amount of work. For those who are unaware, I was set to graduate this week and be a full fledged doctor. For those who are unaware, I did not graduate since I failed two of my four subjects. Obstetrics/Gynaecology and Paediatrics.
It is a disheartening event, I am unaware of what I did wrong to cause me to fail and I am unaware of the things I must do to correct this at the moment. I will have to learn that when I go back to India.
You heard me right, I am going back. To do the same things I normally do and to try and train myself better so that I do pass come June/July. In order to pass I have to put up more work in the two fields I failed in.
This does mean a few things.
For starters, I am not going to be around the UK as I had hoped. I am going back to India to log in more hours. This has needless to say… irritated me. I am extremely angry that I have to go back in particular after failing at something that I expected to do well in and pass.
It’s going to be a more relaxed time for me. I have less duties in medicine and surgery so I will be writing more often. It would be nice to expand my writing and get more people reading.
The price of failure is heavy, it weighs upon me more and more. It makes you question your decisions and your choices. It makes you dwell in the past. Over the past 3 days that is what I have been doing. But not anymore.
This is my line in the sand. I have lived my life knowing I am too stupid and too ugly and too stubborn to ever give up. Two days moping around is enough, I have another week to enjoy in the UK and I am going to enjoy it. And then I will go be productive. If they will not give me a degree then I guess I am going to have to leave them no choice but to give me one.
The price of failure to me is 6 more months in India. The price of failure to me is being unable to go to Nepal. The price of failure is painful but failure defines us. You do not know what you truly are made of and what you are capable of doing until you fail.
We live in a world where we are expected to give up. Where we are told that we cannot endure the same things our ancestors did. Where we are plied with stories of my generation giving up at the slightest difficulty. I know this is not true because there are other people like me.
And like me there are others who have failed. Fallen at various hurdles in medicine. And at every point I have told them to not think too much about it.
Well I have been a gigantic fucking hypocrite. A hypocritical hippocrat. I worried myself stupid over the last 2 days. I should take my own advice. Failure is just a setback, it is an opportunity to assess the flaws you have. So if my flaws were academic then I must rectify that. If my flaws were communicative, I must rectify that. I fear my flaws were etiquette which is given a lot of emphasis in India, so that is something to think about.
At times like this, we must see if there is profit in failure.
That’s the price I have to pay for failing. My punishment is to see how much more I can endure.
And I will not lose the next time.
The poem that influenced me the most is Invictus, I must take heed of its words.
Expect posts to resume properly next Monday when I am back in India. Expect my photography stuff to start too.
