My biggest failure till date...

Attention! Ladies and Gentlemen! Please note that the tim eis 3AM on 24th August 2006. What the hell am I doing writing a blog at this unearthly hour???? I dont know myself! I have not been able to sleep for the past 2 hours and I have been tossing and turning...

This is going to be a looooooong one and all about me.. so, dont read it if u dont want to.. it is probably pretty boring..


A bit of background about myself.. When I was in school and college, I was never the kind of person who knew what I wanted in life.. In fact, thinking about it now, I didnt have a clue to what I wanted to do in life..All the important decisions in my life right from choosing which group I opted for in eleventh standard to which course and which college I chose is the reflection of what my parents thought was good for me.. But pleeeease, dont think I was a very goody goody girl.. On the contrary I only did what my parents thought as "Time-wasters".. 24 hours kadalai! :)... thats the reason y my parents had to take all the decisions for me.. I just wasnt bothered to take any for myself.. I just went along with the flow.. So, that way, I completed my fourth year in college and even managed to get a job on campus, to the utter amazement of my parents!... Upto this point, believe me.. I never had an idea of what it means to try for something very hard and NOT get it... I had this foolish notion that I would get everything I want, I just had to want it, thats all... I didnt know about this BIG BAD world at that time..


So, I came to Bangalore and took up my maiden job and thereby I was exposed to a totally new world where competition was fierce.. and I had to slog my ass out.. I did night-outs 3 months after I joined... as I continued working, I saw some very obvious flaws with the management, with the way some things were managed and I found my perfect "manager" too in the process.. Then, i decided that I wanted to study managemnt...And then CAT 2005 happened...

THAT is my BIGGEST failure in life.maybe, i shouldnt call it a complete failure because there were a lot of learnings from the process even though the main objective was not achieved.. For those who have taken up CAT, they would know that CAT is not a joke.. that too preparing for a competive examination after working 13 hours everyday is definitely not a joke.. But I gave it my best shot. In fact, I hadnt wanted anything so badly in my life at that point.. I didnt even imagine I would fail..I have never been bad at academics throughtout my life... i was always the class topper in school and in college, i did decently.. But CAT was just beyond me.. it just wasnt happening.My scores werent improving in any of the mock tests and the worst part was that I was with a peer group in which every single person ultimately did better than me and none of them put in as much effort as I did..All of them are in reputed B-schools now,hats off to them!

For weeks together after I finished CAT I was depressed.. I couldnt digest the fact that I didnt do well in the exam after so much hard work.. my friends were alarmed..my parents were blissfully unaware of what was happening which was well and good...Then happened the worst day of my life.. Jan 2nd 2006 when the results came out.. only to find out that my best friend has got calls from all the 6 IIMs and all my other friends have done very well.. I left office that day early because I couldnt handle questions from others... I believed I was a good-for-nothing..I believed that for a long time after that, in fact..

I dont know how many people can relate to what I'm saying.Most would think that this is no big deal, it is an examination after all.... some people think that a love failure or a marriage failure, basically failure of a relationship would be much more crushing than this. I would definitely disagree.. I believe that in the case of relationships, it requires effors from both sides to make it happen. It is not enough if only u want to make things happen.. But when it comes to things like what I'm talking about (an examination in this case), it was entirely upto me to make it happen. I cannot shift the blame onto to anybody else. I'm completely and entirely responsible for my failure. So, how does it feel when one knows that she has screwd up something which was entirely in her hands?and which was the focal point in her entire life?

But, on hind sight, CAT taught me a lot of things. Upto before i started studying for cat, I never thought it was possible to read after working 10 hours in office.. It taught me that sleeping for 6 hours a day is more than enough..that there are people who are much more smarter than what I'm and need to work twice as much as I do to keep pace with such people.. how if feels to have a focus point in life.. How it feels to FAIL, in something u desperately dont want to..that hard work is not what is required, smart work is.. that it is not so bad to be dumb at times. that it is ok to fail. that it is ok for people to have not-so-great thoughts about me.. that finally nothing matters except how I feel and what I want in my life..and of course..,how to time things..In fact, at one point of time, i used to time everything I was doing.. and it changed one very foolish notion I had.. that when I cannot do things, prayers can. It is sometimes funny to think how fervently I usd to pray. I submitted the CAT application form in all temples from Madurai Meenakshi amman temple to Samayapuram(didnt somebody say that the Amman there is very powerful?)...haha! what a JOKE!I didnt pray for a LONG LONG time after cat.. Now I know, if i cannot, then there is nothing else that can make things happen....

Basically, it made me smarter and changed my attitude infinitely to the better.. and it definitely improved my math.I can say this for sure because, right after CAT, i attended the interview of an organization which I had attended previously too, but didnt manage to clear. But this time, it was a piece of cake. Ultimately, I didnt take up the offer because I got a much better one, that is a different issue. But CAT taught me 'lateral thinking'. I believe that was y i made it through the interview with my present organization too..
And something that I'm really proud of is that it was MY decision to write CAT.. I had actually made a decision for myself :),not my parents.... and from that points onwards, till date all decisions have been mine.Quitting my ex-company, joining my current one, my lifestyle etc etc...In fact, I have exceeded my expectations by deciding to write CAT again which is totally AGAINST the wishes of my parents.. and it does feel good to take decisions even though I know I'm responsible if something goes wrong.! In fact now,my attitude has changed to that extent that I will never let anybody else take a crucial decision for me...

Now, here I go again, writing CAT 2006. I really dont know what is going to happen this time. I'm not so passionate about it as last time and I'm actually prepared for it if I screw it up. Because with CAT you never know what is going to happen till the last day. Most people just crumble under pressure and I know a lot of cases when people who were doing exceedlngly well manage to create a record for their lowest score when it actually matters. This will probably be my last attempt with CAT, if it doesnt work out, then some things are just not meant to happen. I'm doing my best and I'm hoping that atleast something decent comes out of it...