#8: Of Failures and Screwups

Well, I know the title of this post isn’t very appealing. But it’s the truth.

I screwed up. Royally.

It was a hard week. Not harder than what most people are going through right now. The COVID situation in India is grim. People are dying. Losing their loved ones.

Newspaper headlines are screaming negativity at you every day. It is a LOT.

So, yes. My week wasn’t that hard considering what other people are going through right now. But it was an emotionally difficult week.

I don’t know why. Some things can’t be explained. They can only be felt.

And I felt shitty.

Most things I planned for worked out during the week. I got some exciting news which turned out to not be so exciting after all. I had no idea what was wrong with me.

I just cried and cried — not knowing why I was really crying. But I also do know. There’s COVID news all around. I can’t escape it. I can leave Whatsapp and Telegram groups. I can go off Twitter. I can choose to not read the newspaper. I need a break. I definitely do.

Am I less human? Not at all. I am saying all of this because I AM human. I’m not perfect. I’m not saving lives. I can’t go be a volunteer right now because I need to prioritize my own mental health.

Kudos to the folks who are able to manage all of this and their mental health. Right now, I’m not them. And I’m trying to find my version of being OK with it. I want to feel less guilty about it. And that’s what I’m busy focusing on. COVID volunteers are doing a phenomenal job of not being affected by the negativity. But just reading a Whatsapp message these days is enough to send me into a spiral. Wait, did I hear someone say digital detox? Sorry, that’s not really an option right now. It’s a fancy solution to a problem that’s burying us. That’s taking over everything. That’s even controlling how we breathe.

Don’t worry. This post isn’t a cry for help. I’m just saying it like it is. I’m not complaining or whining. I just thought writing this out would help me be more compassionate towards myself. I can be super hard on myself without realizing it.

I’m not afraid to cry — never have been. It helps me cope in the worst of situations.

In hindsight, I should have put up a disclaimer at the top that this post wasn’t going to be an easy one to read.

Trust me, I was planning to write a very different post this Sunday. But the events of the past week just compelled me to throw my plan out the window and write this up without thinking twice.

Personal growth isn’t always glamorous. Leadership is definitely not easy.

It’s shitty. It’s messy. It’s emotional.

It’s dark and depressing. It’s unnerving. It’s uncomfortable.

But here’s something I’ve learned. If you screw up, apologize. That’s courage. Own your failures and your mistakes. Don’t push it under the carpet.

Growth isn’t always what you expect it to be. Somehow I keep learning this the hard way. I know I’m not alone in this.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed right now, if you feel like you can’t go be a kickass COVID volunteer, if you feel like you can’t keep reading messages about oxygen and hospital beds, that’s OK.

Your mental health comes first. We all have our own ways of processing anxiety, sadness and uncertainty. That’s OK. Take your time with figuring it out. If you screw up in these trying times, it’s OK. Admit your mistake and move on.

It may not even be a mistake you made, but it’s just that people are not in the right mind. They’re dealing with their own shit and sometimes they take it out on you without even realizing it. Even an innocuous comment can send them spiraling. It’s not YOUR fault. It’s the situation that’s messed up.

My mistake was to blame myself for it. I took the blame —no one asked me to. I cried because I felt guilty. I started questioning my ability to lead and empower. I started questioning my levels of empathy. I began to feel as if everything I had built over the past year had gone down the toilet.

But I let them make me feel guilty. Why did I take on that pressure? Why should I compare their levels of empathy with mine?

Why should I think that their approach is right and mine is wrong? It’s not black or white. It could be grey. Pink. Or even the entire spectrum of colors. Why should I feel that I’m not doing enough just because I’m not volunteering on Twitter or saving lives in a hospital?

I get to decide how I feel and yesterday I lost control over that. Why should we be made to feel guilty just because we want one safe space in the world that doesn’t talk about COVID? Am I wrong in wanting that?

Yesterday, I realized that there’s no such safe space left in the world. COVID is enveloping us and the only thing I can do right now is to live with it, accept it and live my life the way I was living it until four days ago.

The list of my failures and screwups is endless. But why should I reveal them all in one post?

What do you think?

Cheers, K

P.S. I needed an image for this post and the only one I could find was this really aspirational quote. It rings true at many levels. But right now, success looks very different for different people. Just getting from one day to the next is success. Agree?

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