How to achieve failure

Yes, I have picked up the gauntlet. Yes, I think I can write online.

Who doesn’t like a challenge?

But one a day?

No way!

Maybe one for today.

(If the reader discerns a proclivity to break into verse, let me assure that it is entirely unintended.)

Anyway, here we go. My hub. Let me first fill in on how I went about creating this masterpiece.

First of all, I zeroed in on “long-tail niche topic” as the most difficult part of the exercise and almost gave up.

Then, in what seemed like a eureka moment - after stretching and tossing around in my bed at the auspicious hour of brahma muhurtham, (stylized, even if obscure, way of saying early morning) – in a moment of vacuous groping, it dawned on me that a recipe for failure would indeed be an excellent long-tail niche topic. The search frequency being very low, the tail would be interminably long and as for “niche”, well, I don’t think there can be any argument about failure being the ultimate niche topic, and let me add, extremely search-friendly too, as any aspiring failure would naturally vouch. So the topic was settled.

The other important factors to be kept in mind were uniqueness and originality.

Not difficult at all, I assured myself, as the topic is braaaaand new. So new that nobody has even thought of it . You just have to do a keywords search in the venerable Google adwords to figure out that there’s not a single search for “how to achieve failure.” So it’s perfectly unique (meeting the standard definition of perfect uniqueness, which is generally accepted as “search result=zero”). What is more, it’s completely original and will remain so for many years. OK, that’s a rather strong statement and calls for a supporting explanation. No problem, really, but it would involve a confession that a braggart would love to shout from the treetop and a modest person like me would shy away from. But then, in the interest of the readers, I will reluctantly put it down in words.

You see, my credentials are so perfect, having tasted failure on countless occasions that I just cannot think of any competition – yes, any competition – not for now, not for a month, but for years! Hence my uncharacteristically confident assertion that this long-tailed niche topic and unique content will stay original for years. Moreover, since the competition is zero, there is conceivably no scope for duplicating content and I will have to perforce draw upon my vast reservoir of experiences to cook up four hundred words. This is the stage when Euclid would say QED and therefore I will leave it at that.

(The paragraph break at this stage is meant to ensure that formatting standards are high. As for writing, grammar, spelling and capitalization I have delegated all this long ago to the word processor, because I am usually very busy, breaking through my chronic writer’s block while belting out recipes for failure, in a combination of native Malayalam and SMS English. I am sure my word processor will come through with flying colors).

Recent surveys conducted by me during REM stage (Rapid Eye Movement sleep stage) perambulations indicate that 12.865* per cent of aspiring males in the 25-55 age group and 12.646* per cent of females in the 22-52 age group believe that they are successful in their lives and therefore left with no choice but to aspire for and work for greater success.

The survey also shows that as many as 3.182* per cent of males in the 22-32 age group and 3.285* per cent females in the 25-38 age group have tasted early failure and are therefore confident that they will effortlessly glide through life in a serial celebration of failure. The recent financial crises and global warming are all cited as conducive factors.

But the most interesting finding is that a whopping 83.953* per cent of males in the 12-62 age group and 83.849* per cent of females in the 16-52 age group are grouped under “Don’t know / Can’t say.” Application of the latest computational techniques with a brand new P674 algorithm (developed by me in the last moments of REM) clearly indicate that this group is indeed a proxy for “I know I can achieve failure but it’s not politically correct to say so.”

The path breaking findings and conclusions from this REM survey have, I imagine, baffled market researchers as well as experts in educational psychology. I would imagine that the ramifications will continue to be felt across functions and geographies and this inspirational writing is just one of the latest byproducts.

(*The new initiates among readers will observe the credibility of my REM results because of the three decimal places that I opted for).

The findings - to put it in simple words - imply that while most people are seen to be chasing success, a large number (about 62%) are probably chasing failure.

It would seem therefore that while it may be politically correct to chase success, it is practically wise to quietly court failure.

It is obvious to any serious thinker that it’s failure that is actually extolled by the world.

Remember that proverb about failure being a stepping-stone for success?

Now what it clearly implies is that failure is the first stage to reach on this journey. Once you reach failure, you can always decide whether you want to leave your comfort zone and go further to chase a mirage called success. The sensible answer will always be “No!”

Why should you, when there is such a huge allure and mystique around failure? Remember Erich Segal’s Love Story? Remember the story of Romeo & Juliet? Why do the best love stories all end up in failure? Obviously there is a beauty surrounding the tragic hero. There is a refreshing feel about the pathetic fallen, broken, bruised and battered figure.

Words fail me in accurately conveying the grandeur and allure of a failure and therefore I have to take recourse to graphics. I am referring to the picture alongside of a rock naturally sculpted through erosion. (It’s a different matter that this also fulfills the requirement of adding my own original photo to this literary masterpiece. I only hope you appreciate the picture even if it conveys nothing).

The best thing about failure is that it is the natural course. Like the river flows downstream, so also a human being will flow naturally down the slopes of failure. But if he doesn’t allow himself the freedom to achieve failure, either because he’s got addicted and wants to remain bonded to success or he wants to be politically correct and waste time pretending to be working for success, then he has only himself to blame. Failure in its purest form will forever remain elusive. But if he breaks through the shackles that bind him to success, and floats free without a care, undisturbed by contests and gauntlets and challenges, then failure will be his to grasp in this very lifetime.

There is hardly anything more that I can add. This is an inspirational hub and is meant to convince the 62% that serious unfocused efforts would surely earn them the fruits of failure. There are no quotes to celebrate failure and so we just have hard facts coupled with my own inspiring example.

I guess I can tick off most of the pre-requisites for a highly rated masterpiece and so the last part is a very simple straightforward appeal to all readers to objectively look at my hub and consider that I have made out a strong case for a score of A+++ on all parameters……… and further considering my strong credentials, ……………well, I am too modest a failure to be more brazen than this, so I will say no more and leave it to your kindness and generosity ………….