Fifteen Years
It's never over until..
Year 2005. Sometime around May.
I stood near the gate of the university building, lost in my head, until someone pushed me from behind and pulled me back into the world.
Loud voices everywhere. Friends embracing families. Happy faces, worried faces, tearful ones. The results were out.
“What are you waiting for? Go check yours.” My friend hugged me, tapping my arm repeatedly. He had cleared the most difficult year of engineering. He kept talking but his voice faded somewhere.
All I could hear was my heartbeat.
“What’s your roll number?” Ashish ran toward me, out of breath, grinning. I could tell from his face he had already passed.
My hands were trembling as I pulled the admit card from my wallet and handed it to him.
Engineering was never my first choice. I never understood the technicalities. Never loved the subject. My only goal was to clear it so I could pursue what I truly wanted. So I had poured everything into it. Worked harder than I ever had. My friends were more confident about my result than I was. They thought I would top the class.
I watched Ashish push through the crowd toward the red walls of the old building where the results were pinned.
After a while, he turned.
The smile was gone.
He slowly shook his head.
Ketan couldn’t believe it. He rushed to check himself. Same answer.
I had failed. Again. Two subjects.
My family thought I was distracted. My teachers didn’t think I was worth engineering. That night I cried alone in my room, with nothing but the silence and the weight of all that effort that had gone nowhere.
The next morning I began again.
Weeks later, walking to the exam hall, I froze in the middle of the road.
My legs wouldn’t move. My mind was loud with every worst case, every embarrassing outcome, every disappointed face. I stood there on the pavement, unable to take another step.
Then something shifted.
What’s the worst that could happen?
I will fail.
I was already failing. There was nothing worse left to fear.
And in that moment — something moved in me. Not confidence. Not hope. Something quieter and harder than both.
I might fail tomorrow. And the day after. But I will not be a failure in my life.
The moment I said it, the pressure lifted.
I walked to the exam hall with a free mind.
There were more failures after that day. More subjects, more setbacks, more roads that went nowhere. Friends disappeared. New questions arose about my capability.
It was a lonely walk. There were stretches where I couldn’t see the end of it.
But I didn’t quit. I kept pumping belief and hope into myself. The future stayed unclear — until it didn’t. Just small flashes at first. But I kept at it, disregarding every question that arose in the minds of others — and in my own.
When I wrote the last word of my first book “The Goal Getter,” a tear skipped my eye.
The first image that came to my mind was a boy frozen on a pavement, who had refused to give up.
That was me. Fifteen years ago.
Quiet Clarity
It’s not failure until you give up.
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