Success is the other end of Failure

I had many fears growing up, but since I am a Rajput (warrior clan), I am not supposed to be scared.

I have struggled as a student. Never academically strong, I always struggled to pass with average scores. My fear for examination persists till date. I still get anxiety attacks before business presentations or anything that my mind likens to an exam-like situation.

During childhood, I felt like it was surrounded by monsters - school, parents and teachers - were giants wanting to squelch me like an ant. I was terrified. I failed twice in two subjects. I hated Math and everything about it. I still remember that I scored 10 on 100 in pre-boards. Math was the monster with the widest mouth and biggest teeth, determined to devour me.

By the way, Math was not the only time I failed.

I failed in Hindi once in Vth grade. It was awful since there were three teachers in our joint family - my mother, a Sanskrit teacher and two of my aunts were Hindi teachers. But, I failed!

I was a challenge to my parents. For them, I was an enigma that my parents decided to outsource.

I had two strict tutors for Math who came in every day. They were paid to make me gulp Math. My school teacher was also beseeched to pay special attention. If extra classes were arranged for weak students, I was promptly enrolled. I had to survive till board exams but, I needed to escape. I was made to feel that I had not failed Math but life.

Deep inside me, I was crying for help, love and support. I wanted to get out. Every night Math was killing me in my dreams making me shout and cry for help. My lungs were exhausted, ready to surrender.

But, a tiny girl inside me wanted to live, wanted to see life and experience love. So, I strove on.

I also thoroughly believe that ‘God helps those, who help themselves’ - I decided to help myself live. And with that, two wonderful things happened to me.

I had no friends to discuss failures or anxiety with. In school friendship also depended on academic scores – I was no friend material. Prayers seemed like the only answer.

 Then one day my teacher made a new girl sitting next to me. She looked kind. I started speaking about my fears and anxiety to my bench-mate, she was very patient and very good at Math. She was also very helpful. She even let me copy her assignments. She decided to spend some time and decoded for me the monster that was Mathematics.

Today I can proudly share that I helped her so much in those days by being a needy Math student that she is now a PhD in Mathematics from IIT. Had I not being a challenge and she a kind soul, her story may have been a lot different ;-)

So, with little love, patience and kindness I was able to understand Math. It also made me realize at a very tender age that love helps. I helped me mould my character to be loving and kind.

The other thing that happened to me was also life changing - I found an old book on handwriting analysis in my father’s garage. I decided to explore it. I got sucked into it and the more I read, the more I wanted to know. It felt like I had found the key to happiness in that one long-forgotten book. 

The worst was that when I started reading it, I realized - to my horror - I had serious depression and anxiety issues. It was scary but explained why I used to feel empty inside. I had this constant fear of being left alone. I had no one to talk to. I dreamt of failures - train running over me, unable to run, Math monsters, failing an exam. At times binge eating, at others not eating at all; Crying the entire night. The book explained it all and where was it headed to.

Those were not the days of the Internet. Knowledge was limited. There was no world outside the people I already know.I was totally lost. I did not know how to handle depression and anxiety or the goddamned board exam!

That book told me that changing my handwriting could help change my life. This was my Eureka moment. It was going to be my personal miracle.

The next morning, I went to school determined to change my life. I had the recipe for my personal magic potion. All I needed now was the handwriting of the top five Math students in my class. Too shy to directly ask for writing samples, I went to the staff room, stole their handwriting from notebooks and started the painstaking exercise of coping their handwriting.

I even bought a new ink pen imaging it to be my personal magic wand. It worked! Copying handwriting helped me in many ways. The immediate outcome was yes, my Math scores were better. I was able to pass my board examination with 51 marks which were a huge improvement on the 10 I had for pre-boards. I was also more confident and much happier.   

Nutshell, I was on the path to recovery.

Eventually working on handwriting religiously changed my academic life. In my college days, I was among the top 10 kids in class.

As a practising handwriting analyst and a coach now, I do my best to ensure that this chapter of my life does not get replicated in anyone else’s. I know there are many like me killing themselves in silent but raging wars within.

For parents of such kids, this is a very powerful tool to assess what is going wrong.

Some time back, one of my professors shared that her son’s not interested in making friends and mostly lives by himself. It was a worrying trend. I saw the handwriting and drawings of the kid. The sketches were of mega cities, spaceship, war zones and ninjas saving the world. His handwriting was openly talking about his social anxiety.

After two months of working with him and making some little changes in writing, he walked home one day and announced, “I have a friend and today is his birthday. I want to go to his birthday party and gift him something nice.”

A client shared her daughter’s handwriting sample complaining about her aggressive and repulsive behaviour. Upon checking, I realized that the issue was not in the daughter’s sample but, in the mother’s. She was too controlling and judgemental towards the child. After one session of counselling with both of them and making both take handwriting coaching for two months, they are today a happy duo.

Pressure and anxiety before and during the exams are one time when I get many queries and clients. I take it as a chance to help others – to give back.

Life is a journey that needs to be explored. Love yourself, you are precious, whatever way you are. Both failure and success are perspectives - they are relative. What looks like success from one end can be an utter failure from another perspective.

We all have fears but, that adds to the adventure that is one lifetime, it makes us enjoy our milestones and in overcoming them.