Stars for anyone who has sat an exam ..

When I was young, I never studied for exams... I might do a little work in advance but I would never look at my work the day before the exam, instead I would watch cartoons. This drove my family up the wall. But it was my way of dealing with the stress. At some level, i must have known that fear paralyses me and that if I got myself into a "fear based state", I wouldn't have been able to do my best.

I can only remember one time in my life when i got stressed out about an exam because I really , really wanted to do well. I was pursuing an adult education program and I remember going to the exam hall and looking around at all the people who seemed like they knew more than me.
I could not think, I was more worried about the others and at break, a friend came to see me( maybe he knew that I was going to lose the plot!) The minute I saw him, I burst into tears and I said , " I cant do this, all the others are so well prepared, I might as well just quit now, because I am going to fail" He looked at me and said " Since when, have you ever been afraid of failing, why are you thinking about it now, you are smarter than most people in that room, you are going back in that room and you are going to complete this exam and you are going to do well!"

I returned after lunch to complete the exams and I am glad I did because I did well. But what if I didn't?..... Examinations are based on one view at a specific point in time. Yes , it does influence what we do as a result of it but who says that this is a bad thing.

We set out in life saying that we want to do something , most times we do something totally different , life's like that. We don't ever fail, its our perspective and value judgements that make us do this to ourselves because we are stuck in one view point at a specific point in time. But if we look at the bigger scheme of things, maybe this is exactly what was meant to happen, maybe this will open the door to what we are really meant to do.

At 50, when I look back at life, I can see that every turn, every detour was helping me get to where I am today. There have been times when i thought that i have "failed" especially when my marriage ended. Louise Hay , in one of her books, says that relationships don't fail, they succeed, when you have learnt all you need to learn from each other , you have to move on. I really do believe that this is the case with life. Our view of success is very narrow and we dissect it into small pieces and look at it one piece at a time without looking at how it all fits in or looking at the whole. Reminds me of that story of a frog, sitting in a well and looking up and saying " all this sky is mine" - not knowing that there is a much bigger "sky" waiting outside.

We have to go through many "exams" in life and we wont know if we have "done well" because that's not for us to decide. You can only do your best in each moment and have the confidence in life that there is something bigger waiting for you out there. That you too will make your mark on this world and that most people who are successful in life are successful because they have "failed" many times. We cannot ever forget that and lose perspective of the bigger picture.

I was sent this quote yesterday by a friend :

What is the secret of SUCCESS....? "RIGHT DECISIONS" How do you make Right Decisions....? "EXPERIENCE". How do get Experience....? "WRONG DECISIONS" by Dr Abdul Kalam.