What Holds You Back?

All around the world, women are busy multi-tasking and playing different roles. But are we doing enough for our true identity?

I recently read an article by Elizabeth Garner. She had written about competitiveness in women and how this causes needless stress in our sex life. An interesting point that she brought up was that, as a group, the modern woman who was now responsible for so many roles both at home and in the workplace have very few role models and tested frameworks to fall back on. It is only recently that women have been playing these diverse roles all together and while some of us can play the role of a working woman very well, others are good at being a stay-at-home mother while there is a whole other bunch who is good at hosting events and being social. The problem or the competitive problem here lies in the truth that we cannot simply be good at all these roles all together; hence, there is always a sense of disappointment, a sense of amiss in many of us. In her article, Elizabeth Garner advices women to learn to let go a little, make mistakes and basically not worry so much about each of our capabilities.

While reading this article, the thought that came to my mind was that this competitiveness could be between the various identities and the roles we want to play. As a recently married woman, the number of roles that I have to play now has increased; not only in number, but in delicacy as well. Earlier it was me, my immediate family, my friends and well, my work colleagues. Now, in addition there is my husband, his friends and his family. The roles I have to play are so many that at times I really am at sea trying to play them all.

As a society, we are enamoured of success, and try to run as far as possible from failure. But can we not embrace our failures, which are, after all, part of our journey of life? Let us think about it in this new year.

Recently Google’s CEO and one of India’s best exports to the Silicon Valley, Sundar Pichai was part of an interactive Q & A session with students at Delhi’s prestigious college SRCC. Out of the many interesting things he spoke about (including the possibility of the next Android version named after an Indian sweet!), one idea stuck a chord with me. Like all great visionaries and highly successful leaders, he spoke about following one’s dreams and being true to oneself and their passion, but he also spoke about a dreaded word in most of our dictionaries-FAILURE. He spoke about failed entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley, wearing their failure and the failure of their start up ventures, as ‘badges of honor’ on their sleeves. It seems such a novel idea, turning something which is, in general, considered negative, to such a wonderful and positive thing.

I feel it is especially very important for a country and society like ours to somewhat embrace the idea of failure. From childhood, the idea of ‘success’ in various forms is fed into our heads. Topping the class, getting more marks in board exams than the neighbour’s child, getting a good professional degree in a field like Engineering or Medicine and having a high earning job, are all seen as indicators of success. Clearing the IIMs or the IAS exams, is the epitome of success in our society. We as a society are very competitive and even though it has resulted in many Indians having an inherent academic advantage as compared to their global counterparts, it has also created in the majority of Indians a very deep rooted fear about failure and the need to ‘succeed in all spheres of life’, especially in the eyes of society and parents and relatives and friends. This fear of failure has become so deep rooted that most of us have forgotten how to take risks and prefer instead to take the safest and easiest path.