Ever got a feeling at the end of something that a whole show got screwed up because of you? Ever felt so responsible to have screwed up the hard work and time put in by so many people? Ever felt like the weakest link? If you have not I pray you do not ever get to feel that way.
I must be in class 7 or 8 when we had a drill organised in the school for the upcoming Founders Day. The entire senior school practised religiously for days together. It was a formation in which people had to perform some exercises using wooden dumbbells. About 200 children performed in unison. The great thing about the show was that each thing was perfect. The drill had about 16 exercises. On the final day there are thousands of guests who come in to see the magnificent event. The drill started and everything was going on perfectly. In the last but one exercise I dropped the dumbbell. .. All eyes stared at me.. I still shake to think of that day.. I resumed the drill and completed it but it was me, I was the one, who dropped the dumbbell. It was me who ruined the show! I will live with this for the rest of my life.
Such things are not very alien to me. I have been the show spoiler many more times. I have come back on my bike from Ramaiah with the guilt of having not done enough to get things right for several programmes. I have rode back home with the guilt of not done enough to save a life. And I tell you, the feeling sucks!
I screwed up yet again today. This time it was my office presentation. Something happened and the demo did not work properly. I screwed it up yet again. I am trying to evaluate now if the fault was noticed by many. I don't know the answer to that. But I do know the answer to one thing. No one came and said that the presentation was good. And I guess I am the culprit. The one who screwed up. Team effort gone down to drains because of the idiot I know as myself.
It is not feel good to screw up. I feel like taking some actions today. I feel like fixing a problem that I have been learning to live with. I feel like walking out of the chains that hold me to keep making me do the things that I do not like. Excuse is what I call this feeling myself. Excuse for in-sincere effort. Excuse for doing what I have done. I hate this moment!
I don't know if screwing up is okay for an individual. But for a team that you are a part of, screwing up does not seem too good for me. I hate to see people feel less happy because of me. Clearly me. Only me. The person who is to be squarely blamed is me.
Then when I think of the moments when I have received applauses! Yes there have been those days as well. Do I really deserve to be excited about them? Do I really need to feel happy about having screwed up so badly sometimes and done okay in the others? All this surely pulls out some conclusions for me:
- Am not the successful one. I am not the perfect one and the wonderful one. Whatever I do and wherever I go, I must never forget that I am nothing but a mere average or less - the one who Goofs Up!
- I must improve. I must improve my way of doing things. I must learn to place my emotions and priorities well. I must do things in a better way.
- I must quit doing what I do not like. A particular thing about most things that got screwed up was that I was in there without the thirst of being there. Doing something half heartedly has not only cost me dearly, it has also cost my group dearly.
It is one of those days when you really start hating yourself :(. Sometimes I wonder if anyone else ever feels this way.
I feel responsible for ending this on a positive note. This is because the God given power to forget and proceed will soon embrace me. In next few hours I will be back to normal. But after reading this non-sense I don't wanna let you go back with a bad mood. The simple point is this, whatever happens, how many ever times I goof up, I screw up, I will go on. On and on and on. This is what has driven me to be able to do some things in life even with the guilt and the dark corners that I live with. This is the only hope I have. And I am not going to Give This Up!