In today’s run-of-the-mill life, everyone is running in a better race, but only a few of them achieve their goals. While most people never reach theirs, whenever we take a step towards our goal, different types of thoughts start arising in our minds—thoughts like, Can I get it or not? It will take a long time, but I don’t have that much time. What will people say if I fail? etc. But even in all this, the biggest fear that remains is whether I will be successful or not, so through this Buddhist story we will learn how to eliminate the fear of failure and understand why this fear of failure arises in our minds.
What is the reason for this? Let’s start the story. A long time ago, a Buddhist monk used to build his cottage near a forest. This Buddhist monk was a very intelligent person. Whoever came to him with their problem, he would very intelligently solve it. One day he went to a nearby village for alms. When he was returning after begging, a young man stopped him on the way and said, I heard you explain any problem very intelligently. I don’t believe it at all, though, that you can solve my complicated problem, but I have heard many tales of your wisdom from people.
That’s why I want to ask you something: Why do we have the fear of failure in any work, and how can we achieve any of our goals without the fear of failure?” The Buddhist monk smiled upon hearing this question from the young man and said, I will definitely answer your question, and after that all your nervousness will also end, but before that you have to walk with me to my cottage.” The young man wanted to test the wisdom of the monk, so he agreed to go to the cottage. After this, the Buddhist monk brought the man to his hut in the forest, but by then it was evening, so they went to sleep after eating.
When they got up the next day, the Buddhist monk said to the boy, Let me take you for a walk in the woods today, and they both went out into the woods. After some time, the Buddhist monk showed a cave to the boy and said, Let me show you around that cave. The boy said yes.
Let’s go. I have wanted to see a forest cave for a long time. After that, they both went inside the cave. It was dark inside the cave, but after a while, the Buddhist monk secretly left the cave and closed the door from the outside. The boy made a lot of noise from inside the cave, shouting,Where are you, Sage? Where have you gone? Why are you not answering me? But after getting no answer for a long time, he got nervous; he panicked and ran towards the entrance of the cave. As he reached the entrance of the cave, he was astonished. What is this? Someone has closed the door of the cave from the outside.
Now how do I get out? He was all alone in that dark cave, very scared and upset. He began to wonder whether the monk had planned to kill him. He started roaming around in the cave, looking for a way out. He wandered around the cave for a long time but couldn’t find a way out. He was feeling very thirsty and hungry; that’s why he sat quietly in one place.
Then he saw sunlight coming from a tunnel, but it was too hard to reach the tunnel where the light came from because there was darkness all around, and the tunnel was at a very high altitude, but still he got up immediately, forgetting all his hunger and thirst, and focused all his attention on getting out of that cave after a lot of hard work and effort.
He reached the sunlit tunnel; he climbed up the tunnel for a while, then suddenly saw the monk extending his hand. The boy quickly came out, holding the monk’s hand. As soon as he came out, he shouted angrily at the monk, Monk, are you mad? You left me alone in this dark cave and came out. Do you know how scared I was, how thirsty I am? The monk, smiling, gave him water and said, Now listen to my words carefully.
You got out of the cave only because of two reasons that forced you to come out: the first reason is you were very thirsty and hungry, and the second reason is you felt suffocated there because you’re used to being with friends and family.
Now let me tell you the two main reasons why you were able to get out of this cave. The first reason is because there were no people with you to say, How will you be able to reach the tunnel so high in this dark? This is impossible, and the second reason is there weren’t even people to say,
Let’s go find another way. An easier way will be found, and we will get out of this cave very easily. Similar is the rule of achieving success. I have shown you how to achieve success by making a small world of it, but the real world is much more complicated than that.
There we get a lot of useless people giving us advice, those who could not do anything themselves but would definitely say, Don’t do this; it is very difficult. You will not be able to do this better. You do that work; you will surely get success in that, and just like that they wander our minds, and we start to doubt ourselves.
One of the major reasons for not getting success is that the process of achieving success is very long, and our minds turn from hour to hour, so why won’t our minds change? After years and months of trying to achieve the goal, our minds change, and we leave that path and start adopting different paths.
gatama Buddha often told his disciples that we see problems only when our focus is not on our goal, and this is 100% true, like when an archer is about to shoot, he closes one eye and with the other eye only looks at the target; only then can he distinguish his target. Similarly, we are afraid of failure when our concentration is not on the goal but rather on the difficulties that come in the way.
You were able to get out of the cave because you couldn’t see anything inside the cave except the light coming from the tunnel. If there had been light inside that cave, you would have been scared to see the huge pits and insects there and would have kept wandering there. That’s why you must keep all your attention on your goal and stop paying attention to what is happening around you and what people are saying.
Stop watching what your friends and relatives are doing, whether they got success or not; stop watching all that and mind only your own business, and then see when your time comes, people will stand up and clap for you. After saying this, the Buddhist monk became silent. The young man said, Sage, you opened my eyes today.
I see wisdom in everything you say. You are really very intelligent, and that’s why everyone respects your intelligence.” I promise you that from today onwards the fear of failure will never haunt my mind. I will concentrate only on my work, and soon I will show myself as a successful person. Saying this, the boy thanked the Buddhist monk and went back to his village.