Failure can be an option

We all want to succeed. Mainly because we are taught that success is the most desired outcome of any activity in which we voluntarily engage, this is true for both, our personal and professional lives. We are taught to stay away from failures, as they hurt our careers, and our image, and make us less desirable entities. However, even though failures are not desirable, they are inevitable, especially for people who take risks or proactively seek new challenges and want to get out of their comfort zone. Failure is not easy to handle, not just because it is not on the list of desired outcomes when we start but also because we are not trained to deal with failures. We are not even taught to expect failures, even if someone predicts or suspects failure we label that person as a pessimist, a naysayer. These are just a few reasons why many people think that failure is not an option. However, failure can be an option, should be an option, and is an option, especially when we want to tread an unknown terrain.

Success or failure, both teach unique lessons, many of these lessons are exclusive to each other, what we learn from success cannot be learned from failure and vice versa. No doubt, success has its own charm and teaches us a lot, at the same time, failure has its own ways to enrich our lives. The lesson here is we need them both to experience our life to its fullest. If we fear failure, the first drawback is we become risk-averse, we try to be overcautious about everything. Being cautious is necessary and is a good thing, but being overcautious makes us fearful of every unknown aspect of life. One has to strike a balance between caution and risk, it can be different for different people, but too much of one thing is not good. Also, it is important to remember failure can be an option and is an option if we are willing to learn the valuable lessons that it provides. Without having the ability to learn lessons from failure and moving on we might only repeat the same mistakes resulting in the same results again and again.

Our fear of failure stops us from changing the status quo, challenging traditions, traveling unconventional paths, and being a risk-taker. To be a risk-taker does not mean to play with fire, that's stupidity. There is a difference between being adventurous and being stupid, there is a very thin line, but there is a line, and it's important to understand that. People who take risks or let's say dare to do something different are prone to fail. There is a reason why many don't try to break the conventional mold or try to travel a less-traveled path, there is a risk of failure, and many are not willing to face that risk. Apart from teaching us humility and the fact that there can be other factors apart from one's hard work that contribute towards the final outcome, once we make failure one of the options we open many more avenues for ourselves. If we do not worry about failure we are more prone to try new things. If we start considering failure as one of the possible and acceptable outcomes we will be more fearless in our approach, we should be able to put our 100% effort and not overly concerned about the final outcome. These things are only possible if we accept that failure can be an option.

Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic. 

The myth of zero emission vehicle

While studying "Environment Law" I came across the term "Zero Emission Vehicle"  (ZEV). The first question that came to my mind was, is it even possible? Can we consume energy without emitting anything? What happens to the energy that we consume? At least, the energy that we use needs to be converted into some other form of energy. The overhyped advertisement of ZEV's created a question in my mind, is "zero-emission" just a catchy phrase like "chemical-free" to attract customers, or does it really mean what it says? It seems that the main purpose of using this phrase is to create an impression in the consumer's mind that the vehicle they are driving is not emitting any harmful gases, that is, it is not doing "any" damage to the environment. These so-called zero-emission vehicles run on some type of batteries. Technically when we use energy stored in a battery they do not emit any harmful gases the way fossil fuels do (for example, carbon monoxide). However, if we analyze it carefully, batteries need to be manufactured and then recharged every time they get discharged. Each of these processes consumes electricity or some other type of energy, they use different chemicals to manufacture batteries, and these chemicals are manufactured in different process plants that use conventional energy sources. The electricity used by batteries might be produced by the process which results in some kind of emission of the very harmful gases which the battery purports not to emit. Therefore, indirectly these batteries do cause emissions which we do not see while driving these vehicles but they do impact the environment. Emissions caused by the use of batteries may be comparatively less than the emissions of fossil fuels, but this does not mean that there is a zero-emission. This means the phrase zero-emission vehicle is an advertising gimmick, just a catchy phrase with no real meaning behind it, designed and used to grab the customer's attention.

Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic. 

It is not difficult to be happy

We are made to believe that the ultimate goal of our life is to be happy. No doubt, there is merit in this message. Happiness is a formidable aim to have, a happy world is also a healthy word. However, the definition of happiness is different for different people. The problem is once we are convinced about the message of the pursuit of happiness, we are taught how to be happy, we are almost brainwashed to instill a definition of happiness in our media from different sources. Some common definitions of happiness include having a dream job, a big home, a loving and beautiful life partner, obedient and successful kids, social status, vacations at exotic locations, and whatever other luxuries the market has to offer us. It is hard to resist these impulses, the projected picture is very tempting, ultimately most of us get drawn into this thinking about manufactured happiness and start chasing it. Let me be clear that there is nothing wrong with chasing these things if you really want them and enjoy them. However, I see many people who chased these things and achieved most of them and still were not happy. Based on this I concluded that it's not easy to be happy, especially if you don't know what you are chasing will make you happy or if you are borrowing someone's idea of happiness rather than searching for your own desires.

The next question is, whether it is easy to realize what we really want or where our own happiness lies? The simple answer is, no, it's not. This is why it's easier to accept whatever definitions and ideas of happiness are offered to us by media or movies rather than dwelling on a difficult quest to find our own calling. Media houses and movie makers have their own commercial interests, both are very expensive enterprises to run and need a lot of cash flow to sustain their operations. Therefore, many businesses and commercial enterprises use these mediums to serve their purpose, and who are their targets? Of course, common people like you and me. We are consumers of content delivered by these platforms, in a way we need these things to fill our need for entertainment or fulfill our intellectual or social needs. In this process, we get bombarded by various messages that subtly try to tell us what it means to be happy. Most of these ideas involve chasing something grand, something valuable, simplicity is not deemed as a virtue but a sign of boredom. The end result, we live in a consumerist society. There is nothing wrong with being a consumer, actually, whether we want or not we are going to consume something. The problem is we are not being consumers but are being designed in a particular way to consume certain things. It is not easy to resist these temptations. The main reason why it is not easy to resist is that the advertisements and other messages are prepared after a lot of research about human psychology and behavior. We feed a lot of data from our side into this system to make it better and stronger day by day. 

Is there a way out or we are trapped to the point of no return? There is definitely a way out. We must be conscious of our actions, and always ask a few questions like, why I am doing this, do I really want this, is there any better way I can spend my time, am I going to be happy after doing this, if yes, how long? Questions like these won't guarantee that you won't fall for any temptations but they will minimize the chances. It is true that it's not easy to be happy, but it's also true that by taking some simple steps it's easy not to get tricked into getting trapped in a vicious cycle of chasing that ever-elusive happiness that never comes. Once we remove all the noise around us we can focus on the real signals from our mind and embrace what we really want without being influenced by what markets or society wants us to do for being perceived as happy. The choice is ours, whether we want to be actually happy or want to be perceived by others as happy. It's not difficult to be happy if we search for that happiness within ourselves rather than somewhere else.

Thank you for reading and please share your opinion about this topic.