Lately I have been feeling overwhelmed by the trajectory of my life. Just when I think I have hit rock bottom I realise that rock bottom has a basement! Hmmm.
It just seems like Murphy’s Law runs my life “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”. Navigating the treacherous terrain of failure is hard. I just wish life was linear but I guess if wishes were horses I would be riding one.
In my quest of to figure out why my life was not moving forward, I decided to read about some of the world’s most successful people just to see if they ever had seasons of failure. Without fail, all of them had epic failures. My favourite pick was Steve Jobs. I listened to Steve Job’s speech at a Standford University graduation and was I so encouraged.
He narrated about his season of failure and what he learned. Curiously, he was fired from the company he co-founded so he moved on and incorporated another company NEXT, and another one PIXAR. PIXAR went into animation movies and created the first computer animated movie, TOYS, that was a box hit. Pixar continued its winning streak with several other computer animations. When Steve Jobs sold his shares at PIXAR he was propelled into billionaire status. After about 10 years in the movie industry, Steve Jobs was hired as a consultant to rescue an almost bankrupt APPLE, and turn it around. A year into his consultancy, the CEO was fired and guess who got his old job back, yeah, Steve Jobs. And he came back with a bang! He innovated Ipod, Ipad and Iphones and the rest is history. His ten years “on the back burner” catapulted him to greater heights. He learned the lessons, his character was transformed and he built back better.
Back to me. My latest failure is not succeeding in an interview. What upsets me most about failing an interview is my inability to separate my emotions from the outcomes of the interview. I psyche myself up, prepare, keep a good attitude only to get rejected! I guess it’s ok to feel disappointed and grieve over the lost opportunity. It’s also ok to dust yourself off and make more applications.
You know, I still believe there will be one, just one success that will turn things around. One success that will make me forget the pain of failure. Just one. So I dust myself off and keep on.
The Crucible 