Well for past 4 attempts I never worried about prelims. Selection in prelims was a taken. The amount of effort that I put in, I was always confident that "if not me then who?". But this time the tables were turned. I missed a basic principle. UPSC is like monsoon. It is unpredictable and uncertain and the only hedge against unpredictability and uncertainty is a conscious focused effort
on the target. As Mains had been my bottleneck point so my focus became mains and in the process I compromised on my effort on prelims. This coupled with my job and other factors proved fatal. And first time in last six years I failed in prelims.And hence comes this blog on how does it feel like failing in prelims?
Hmm As humans it is always difficult to describe self-emotions in objective manner. Our emotions tend to contaminate our perception of ourselves, of how we feel and how we act. Therefore, an objective description of inner feelings require a very sane and experienced mind. Thankfully, I have managed to keep my mind sane in the process.
A usual feeling when we fail in our aspirations is "why me?". A feeling of randomness, gross nature of life, disbelief, shock, numbness, sleeplessness, fatigue, tiredness generally shrouds our mind. The organic self is pushed in the state of convulsion. We look at the peak, over the horizon and speak to god "why me?". We enter into comparison mode and start blaming god or destiny or ourselves about what little the god has given to me.
Recently, I went on Kailash Mansarovar trek. An Indo-Tibetan border police force officer was accompanying me. The trek was difficult as we had to climb a significant height is short time frame and each day we were covering 15 to 20 kilometer on hills. Thus acclimatization was a challenge. Moreover, there were no roads. The path was mostly stony, hilly and at some places slippery and very narrow. Our liasoning officer gave us a very good advice. When in mountains, never look at the peaks you have to cover. Instead look at the peaks you have covered.
Life runs on the same principle. When you fail, never look at those who have succeeded. Instead the best remedy to get rid of "why me syndrome" is to think how fortunate we are that at least we have the opportunity to appear in the exam and follow our heart.
For me feeling is more of "How long? What next? What else?". Rather than the normal emotional outburst, it is more a feeling of void and emptiness. When we fail in Mains, we always have a sight of prelims hovering over our head. But when we fail in prelims, the next prelims is quite far and we suddenly loose all the motivation which we had for mains. So a routine busy schedule is broken and it feels very lonely.
The mind is filled with new thoughts and new questions. Some which are existential in nature are more difficult to tackle. For example, If not civil services then what is that one thing in life which you wish to pursue for rest of your life? Or What to do next? For how long this series of failure will continue? When will I see the light which is said to come at the end of tunnel? How long is the tunnel? For a workaholic like me, it is more a feeling of emptiness. It feels little tiring to continuously loose the face every year whereas there are others who seamlessly jump over the exam.
Well every crisis is an opportunity. Moreover, UPSC failure becomes easy to handle with a job in hand. You know that your career is not stagnant. I have made my plans for next few months. They look exciting. The opportunity is excellent. Everything is just in place to make it happen.
But there is one thing which is missing. And that is my motivation.
So in the end, how does it feel like failing in prelims: the synthesized one word answer is demotivated. Every other question is solved through self talk, thoughtful observation and surreal look of my surroundings. But what about this one? This lies within me. Not outside.
In situations like these, I wish I had someone who could have motivated me, pushed me, forced me to get back on track as quickly as possible.
on the target. As Mains had been my bottleneck point so my focus became mains and in the process I compromised on my effort on prelims. This coupled with my job and other factors proved fatal. And first time in last six years I failed in prelims.And hence comes this blog on how does it feel like failing in prelims?
Hmm As humans it is always difficult to describe self-emotions in objective manner. Our emotions tend to contaminate our perception of ourselves, of how we feel and how we act. Therefore, an objective description of inner feelings require a very sane and experienced mind. Thankfully, I have managed to keep my mind sane in the process.
A usual feeling when we fail in our aspirations is "why me?". A feeling of randomness, gross nature of life, disbelief, shock, numbness, sleeplessness, fatigue, tiredness generally shrouds our mind. The organic self is pushed in the state of convulsion. We look at the peak, over the horizon and speak to god "why me?". We enter into comparison mode and start blaming god or destiny or ourselves about what little the god has given to me.
Recently, I went on Kailash Mansarovar trek. An Indo-Tibetan border police force officer was accompanying me. The trek was difficult as we had to climb a significant height is short time frame and each day we were covering 15 to 20 kilometer on hills. Thus acclimatization was a challenge. Moreover, there were no roads. The path was mostly stony, hilly and at some places slippery and very narrow. Our liasoning officer gave us a very good advice. When in mountains, never look at the peaks you have to cover. Instead look at the peaks you have covered.
Life runs on the same principle. When you fail, never look at those who have succeeded. Instead the best remedy to get rid of "why me syndrome" is to think how fortunate we are that at least we have the opportunity to appear in the exam and follow our heart.
For me feeling is more of "How long? What next? What else?". Rather than the normal emotional outburst, it is more a feeling of void and emptiness. When we fail in Mains, we always have a sight of prelims hovering over our head. But when we fail in prelims, the next prelims is quite far and we suddenly loose all the motivation which we had for mains. So a routine busy schedule is broken and it feels very lonely.
The mind is filled with new thoughts and new questions. Some which are existential in nature are more difficult to tackle. For example, If not civil services then what is that one thing in life which you wish to pursue for rest of your life? Or What to do next? For how long this series of failure will continue? When will I see the light which is said to come at the end of tunnel? How long is the tunnel? For a workaholic like me, it is more a feeling of emptiness. It feels little tiring to continuously loose the face every year whereas there are others who seamlessly jump over the exam.
Well every crisis is an opportunity. Moreover, UPSC failure becomes easy to handle with a job in hand. You know that your career is not stagnant. I have made my plans for next few months. They look exciting. The opportunity is excellent. Everything is just in place to make it happen.
But there is one thing which is missing. And that is my motivation.
So in the end, how does it feel like failing in prelims: the synthesized one word answer is demotivated. Every other question is solved through self talk, thoughtful observation and surreal look of my surroundings. But what about this one? This lies within me. Not outside.
In situations like these, I wish I had someone who could have motivated me, pushed me, forced me to get back on track as quickly as possible.
Very well expressed.. wen I look back if there is one thing I wished abt my preparations ,then it's that I got less demotivated after failing in pre!
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