For the longest time I aspired to study in IBA, University of Dhaka. It was my biggest dream and I had worked the hardest towards it than I had ever towards anything. I did not get in. People always tell success stories. Nobody tells the stories of failure. So, I took it upon myself to do the honors. Here’s my bitter-sweet story of failure.
I have always focused on one thing at a time. All throughout school, my target was to get decent grades in the upcoming exams. I never thought about anything further than that. So, once school was over, the only thing I looked forward to was my IBA admission. I had my hopes high. Any IBAite I spoke to always encouraged me to believe that its going to happen because apparently that’s the first step. I guess I took that too seriously. So, when the bubble finally burst it looked too messy to clean up. Looking back, it seems extremely foolish and naïve to put so much emotional pressure on myself to get into a University. But at that time, I took it as a challenge, a challenge to prove myself and the people around me that I can achieve any goal if I put my heart and soul into it, a challenge that I miserably failed to overcome.
I honestly do not remember much of the exam details. I think my brain completely blocked that memory out. I do remember trying to stay calm and telling myself its going to be okay. I don’t remember coming out of the building, the next thing I remember is sitting in the car, crying. I felt lost because I did not know what was going to happen next. I had nothing to look forward to. The only reality I envisioned for myself for the years to come had just crumbled in that 1 and a half hours. A string of thoughts ran through my head. Had I done the coaching in Dhaka may be the scenario would’ve been different, had I gotten a private tutor may be I would’ve gotten in and then some more thoughts. It may sound very silly and foolish but I would say I went through the five stages of grief in the following months.
I did not get in. I felt the loneliest in my life than ever before.
It felt like nobody understood how I was feeling. My best friends actually got into their dream universities in their dream subjects. As happy as I was for them, I was also a little envious. I felt like I had worked just as hard yet I was the only one in that place. It was a bitter place to be in. I was miserable. They say time heals everything but in this case it took a little more than just time.
After months of feeling like a loser, I finally found comfort meeting people who went through similar experience. Knowing that I wasn’t the only one in this position, thousands of others were in a similar situation. Some of them had higher stakes, some of them had moved cities for proper coaching, some had multiple private tutors, some broke their family legacy of being IBAites, all of their dreams and aspirations broken. This whole thing taught me a lot of things. The biggest realization of it all being it was not the end but only a new and different beginning. The beginning to a life where I don’t put my entire self-worth on things that I don’t have control over. I learned that there was so much to life left for me to achieve, to experience. A University admission does not sum up my life even though it felt like that at that time. I also grew a lot more respect and appreciation for my parents because they let me grief, never for once made me feel guilty even when I let them down. I don’t know what my life would’ve looked like if I actually got in, I think I would’ve felt lost anyway. I’m sure I would’ve questioned ‘Now, What?’ at some time, just not as soon. But I’m grateful for the heart-break and how much I learned from it, for the friends I made who shared similar emotions and mostly for how efficient conversation starter it ended up being.