Coming to terms with failure

Failure — A difficult topic we must always deal with ourselves.

Singapore is known for being a ‘rat race’ society, where constant competition and comparison is the norm, and every youth has a set path that is laid out for them, with the expectation that they will hit milestone after milestone according to this very strict timeline.

What this ends up breeding, is a lot of imposter syndrome, a lot of anxieties, and a lot of unhealthy obsessions with some definitions of ‘success’ — and when we fail to keep this schedule, it becomes perceived as a personal attack — on our own individual self-worth, and heck, our whole conception of self.

It doesn’t matter if the world is in turmoil. We could be in war, in famine, or even a global pandemic — nothing should steer us away from our course. Get good grades and enter the express stream in school, get into a reputable university, explore the world in your exchange semester, find lots of good internships (especially in your penultimate year), and graduate with highest honors. And that’s just on academics — wait till we bring in the national obsession with finding a (heterosexual) partner and getting married + a BTO (public housing mainly provisioned for newly-weds only) by 30.

I had been a success story, following this schedule to a T. Got a high PSLE score, got all As for my O-Level exams, and for my A-Level exams too, and comfortably had 2 internships under my belt by my third year of university.

However, it was exactly then that the Covid-19 pandemic hit. After spending 2–3 months finalizing all my paperwork for the next stage in my life journey, all international travel came to a standstill and my semester exchange was cancelled. Instead of a grade-free semester travelling the world on a scholarship, I was stuck in Singapore in lockdown, having to adapt to online classes and the loss of a grade-free semester. I was lucky to still have found an internship that year, but now, one year later, the pandemic still rages on, and in my penultimate year — the year that your internship could translate into a full-time job offer, I was left completely jobless.

2020 was still alright for my self-esteem, because everyone was in the same boat — trapped in Singapore, suffering in Zoom classes, and stressed beyond belief. I still consider myself highly privileged for having been able to secure an internship despite all those circumstances, while my peers used their Covid summer to rest and fret over unemployment.

One year later, however, Singapore was more or less back to normal and our economy was opening back up. Most of my peers managed to secure internships by May, with the exception of some of us arts students, who always end up struggling a little more to find someone that would be willing to take us in. I too, was a little slow, but on the right track — I had sent over 30 applications out, and 1 had completed the final interview stage.

But because of that 1 offer, I got complacent and believed that everything would be alright. Instead, our community cases began rising again, and one week before I was initially supposed to start work, the company contacted me saying that they were closing all internship positions to comply with office Covid-19 measures. And as much as they were willing to take me in, they had to reject me on short notice.

I was thus left completely at a loss. I had no other offers, and had taken a break from further applications because I thought I had this job in the bag. I could try to frantically apply elsewhere, but by then the semester had ended, job positions were filled up, and most of my friends already started working.

I panicked, I applied to job after job, and even today, 1 week later, I’m still sending out applications every single day. But during this 1 week of anxiety, I got the chance to really think hard about how to go forward, how to deal with these feelings of failure, and how to rethink my pursuit of ‘success’. And so, despite all the topics I had wanted to cover first — as mentioned in my first Medium post, I decided to pen down my thoughts on this issue first, as something so close to my heart right now.

I’ve experienced failures before, but nothing with ramifications like this. Losing competitions, failing tests, breaking up with previous partners, they didn’t have the same long-term consequences as this. I potentially lost a full-time job offer from a company that I genuinely was excited about working for, I have to deal with the daily self-comparisons to friends that are thriving in their internships, and I have to constantly explain to those around me why I’m spending my final summer break cooped up at home.

I had some excuses to use — I could say I wanted to stay safe, avoid getting infected from one of the ever-rising number of community cases. I could blame the government for tightening measures and cancelling my internship at the most inconvenient timing possible. I could argue that I want to spend my last summer relaxing instead of hustling yet another time.

But deep down, my mind would only point to one thing — I was a failure and had only myself to blame.

And that was the thought that constantly stuck in my head the first few days post-rejection. Every time someone brought up anything related to internships, I shut down and either snapped at them, or got immensely despondent and self-chastising. As miniscule as this issue may seem to others (and honestly to myself at times), it just kept chipping away at me, and I couldn’t get those feelings to stop.

After some time, however, I began to calm down and reflect on my feelings and current position. And somehow or rather, I ended up partaking in activities that helped facilitate this process too — something that I am really grateful for now, in retrospect. I joined a university discussion on mental health, I continued reading up on stoicism (my life philosophy that will eventually get a post of its own), and got to spend time with friends and family, do some online courses, and pursue my own little interests, all at my own pace.

All of these experiences helped me to reframe my mind and come to terms with the circumstances that I found myself in. I finally reached the right headspace to tell myself that it wasn’t the end of the world and I can still pick myself back up, even after these back-to-back disappointments. My mental health discussion made me realize that there are ways to combat these feelings, but also that they are completely valid. Stoicism reminded me that life goes on, and dealing with loss is part and parcel of life. Instead of harping on failure, it taught me to move forward and treat everything as a learning lesson for the future. And instead of focusing on ‘what ifs’ and ‘have nots’, I should appreciate my present ‘haves’ before I eventually lose them too.

Being jobless is not something to be shamed for. Everyone has their own reasons for not working. As long as you know yours and stand by it firmly, and you can explain it to your future employers, and they can’t chastise you for that blank in your CV. My exploration of other projects and interests during this break — not because of the pressure to succeed and fill in this void (okay, maybe this is still partially the case), but instead mainly driven by my own interests and passion for learning — is equally fulfilling and valuable as a summer pursuit. We can recognize that we feel pressured to do something during our ‘holidays’, but we can also accept that the things we end up doing to respond to this pressure can be deviant from the norm, and can be things that we genuinely enjoy.

Success doesn’t always translate to a good job and material excellence — it is up to us to frame our own definitions of success for ourselves. And no one can ever invalidate this deeply personal perception.

I may seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill, dedicating 1400 words and counting (yes.. I counted) to the loss of one internship position. But I think this is a feeling that a lot of us experience, especially in Singapore where this can really feel like the end of the world to some of us. And this is just one case study out of many that I could have chosen to use. Other people could be facing their own struggles — some much more catastrophic and life-changing than mine, or some much more minor than this too. But what I’m trying to get at is that they are ALL valid.

Failure can come in many forms, and each one of them in unique to each individual and their own individual circumstances. There shouldn’t be a ranking or hierarchy of what deserves feelings of anxiety and what doesn’t.

While we may make fun of a kid for bawling when they lose a soccer match — we need to contextualize their feelings and understand just how big that on match could have been to them. It could have affected their scholarships, it could have let down their dying parent who loved football, it could have damaged the social relations within their soccer team — at the age when social relations are the most important thing to developing children.

Just as others should not judge someone for their response to their own individual failings, we, too, shouldn’t dismiss our feelings of failure and anxiety just because we feel they are not ‘important’ enough to warrant such responses. Instead of such acts of self-diminishment and gaslighting, we should be kinder to ourselves, and give ourselves time to rationalize and come to terms with our own individual circumstances and emotions.

I struggled to come to terms with my ‘irrational’ response to my internship rejection. But when I try to rationalize it with an open mind, I eventually came to see it as the straw that broke the camel’s back — being in lockdown, losing my exchange semester, watching everyone else find internships, watching seniors that failed to secure penultimate internships also struggle to find full-time jobs post-graduation, and not to mention the constant influx of negative news worldwide— the list could go on and on. Understanding this really helped me to accept and fully embrace my feelings, and find a healthy way to release them and move on.

For readers who may be going through a similar internal struggle — regardless of what it could be about — here are some of the methods which I used to reach this stage of acceptance:

1. Sit with your feelings, reflect on what made you feel this way (both internal and external — it is always about both), what good those feelings are doing for you, and what harm it could be doing to yourself and those around you. Seeing the broader picture and the full timeline of events can help you to see the logics behind otherwise illogical actions or feelings. It could help to write/draw this out in a journal too — to really engage your whole being in this exercise.
2. Try to reframe things and find a healthier way to explain your circumstances, similar to my own example described earlier. Instead of framing it as a individual failure, think of the larger factors that culminated in this result. You may have ‘failed’ to apply for jobs in time — but instead of it being your fault, acknowledge that maybe, you were busy with school assignments, or stressed out from the fallout of the pandemic. They are not excuses if you feel it had a genuine impact on your life, and can help you to stop beating yourself up — as much as you may think you deserve it.
3. Stoicism is very much about visualization, and one useful psychological method for this topic is projective visualization. Imagine that it is not you that was subject to this ‘failure’, and someone else is suffering from the exact same issue. If it were happening to someone else, would you still beat them up or dismiss their feelings? Projective visualization helps us appreciate the relative insignificance of the bad things that happen to us, thus preventing it from taking such a large toll on our mental health. We would come to realize that life would still go on, and this one issue would become insignificant 10 years in the future.
4. Another technique is negative visualization — a more extreme form of reframing. Instead of projecting your situation onto others, you now think about what you already have, and what would happen when you lose them. Doing this even before the problem happens is when this technique proves most useful — so we are better prepared to deal with the impact of the actual occurrence of failure. But doing so after is also useful, when done in the right way. Instead of harping on what we lost, we think about what we do have, and how much worse off we could have been. This helps us turn our focus away from failures, to instead working on improving and cultivating what we already enjoy — whether its relationships, hobbies, or anything else we find joy in. In doing so, the recovery process becomes much faster, and we remember why life is still so worth living.

When we incorporate all of these reframing techniques into our rationalization of our circumstances, we should eventually reach the stage of realization that we should learn to just do the best with what we have, regardless of whether there could have been more that we could have achieved. Everything happens for a reason, and we can be mad at ourselves, or at the people that caused us to feel this way, but in the long run, doing so serves no point, and only seeks to damage us and those around us. Just pick yourself up and move on — greater things still await you, and you can always pursue alternative paths.

I’m going to use this opportunity presented to me by the cancellation of my internship to really enjoy my last summer break and hone my skills before entering the workforce. I will pursue my interest in political science through online courses, I will pick up practical skills in basic programming and data science, and I will delve deep into my passion for writing, by sticking to my promise to write at least once a month on this platform. And most importantly, I will be kind to myself — if I eventually find an internship or part-time job, I will celebrate and make the most of it; or if nothing pops up, I will continue on this path I’ve already started upon and do the things I love, at my own pace, and with the acknowledgement that I’m spending my last break before adulthood both fruitfully, and relaxingly (✿^v^ )୨*:・ﾟ✧.

This post is very much just a conversation with myself. To put the feelings and conversations I had with myself down onto something concrete. To archive and remember, and to look back on whenever the same feelings of self-doubt and despondence start to creep up again in the future.

But if it helps anyone else out there too, that’d be amazing too. Regardless of the struggles you may be facing, reader, I send you lots of love and light.

You may end up forgetting everything else I’ve written in this long ramble, but just try to remember this much:

You’re doing just fine.

Even when you don’t feel like it, the sun will rise again, and you will pick yourself up and make it through yet another day.