What are you failing at?

Recently I awkwardly found myself at a social meet-up on a strange morning that belonged to the last Sunday of the year.

Yes, you can guess the scene!

While a group of good-doers sat down around the year-end leaves to draw up vision-boards and list up health subscriptions, I found myself rather frozen up. Everywhere I looked, there was only contemplations instead of inspirations. All I had to do, it seemed, was take stock of not resources but myself.

How much of I do I have to budget, spend, or save?

What needs to shift in me?

Where do I get all this courage from, that I would need? That clarity, those confidence?

And after spending a good part of the hour with my palm holding up my chin, as it often does... came the coveted Eureka moment!

I turned to the group and hollered.

Good folks, if you would... tell me one thing?

These people looked up at me quizzically, sketch pens on the A4 sheets frozen for the moment. ("Who let her in?")

Tell me, tell me... I dramatically repeated my version of "arz kiya hai" before I placed my Archimidean proposition.

Tell me now. What are you failing at?

Wait, don't get me wrong.

This is not a motivational insinuation on failures being pillars of success, et al.

This is a matter of fact, decision making question.

Because, here's the thing:

You cannot succeed in everything. Period.

So, each of us aiming for success also need to be brutally honest and humble enough to admit what we are losing on.

If I'm doing well at LIGHTHOUSE, it could easily indicate I am leaving a large space untapped on being a better parent. Or, eating healthy. Or, staying course on my daily Vipassana practice.

It's not a trip down the guilt tunnel.

It's a fact check.

Simple!

And it is perhaps not a huge problem but a life's truth.

We should be okay with it.

At least as long as we made the choices ourselves.

Financial freedom, against better health and rest. Aspiration against creativity. Peace, against justice, at times.

They should be okay as long as we called the shots.

The catch is, however, that many of us live a borrowed idea of life.

In that life, the vision of our successes are not really our own.

They're hired from the surrounding, parental expectations and societal standards. Which, well, are actually make-believes.

So here's your cue.

Win some games. Lose some.

But make sure you get to vote.

While it's terrible to not get what we want, it's even worse to discover at the end of it that you never wanted what you thought you did.

Don't climb wrong ladders.

It's never too late to check the wall it is held against.

Our life.

Our own dear wild precious mysterious sad bad glad mad one life!

Remember?