The other day I came across the saga of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was a king in Greek mythology known for his cunning and deceitful nature. His most famous punishment is described in the work of the ancient Greek philosopher and historian, Homer.
According to the myth, Sisyphus committed various crimes and was condemned to an eternity of punishment in the underworld, specifically in the realm of Hades. His punishment was to roll a massive boulder up a steep hill in the underworld. However, just as he neared the summit and it seemed he would finally complete the task, the boulder would roll back down to the bottom, forcing him to start over again.
The story of Sisyphus is often interpreted as a symbol of the futility of certain human endeavors. Sisyphus eternal task of rolling the boulder represents the never-ending struggle and the repetitive nature of certain aspects of life, where one's efforts may seem ultimately in vain.
If you are doing something for 5 consecutive years, and then starting afresh for the 6th time, it sounds a story similar to Sisyphus. it is the story of my UPSC experiment, which is not over yet. Your First Failure come humbling, second as eye opening, third as shattering. Then onwards, the failures stop being any different, you try harder, fail harder, and probably cry even more, but alone. All the great motivational quotes don’t motivate you anymore, you don’t see any point in attending the ‘toppers talk’. A wise person should listen to those who are better, but sometimes we become too oblivious to what is very obvious, just staying in our own created chamber.
A sensible person would and should take a serious introspection and course correction after 3 failures at max. I had failed one prelims and two Mains by then. Not because it was something ‘undoable’ but because I didn’t even try to do the ‘doable’ in absence of proper review mechanism. Level of ignorance had no limit, as I cleared prelims of 2019 and till then had not covered the optional.
So logically I should not have repeated the same mistake in 2020. It was the COVID year, and life once seemed nasty, brutish, poor and short (Hobbes said so in context of state of nature, but never-mind.), but at the same time we had plenty of time to cover that. But still I didn’t write any test for mains. So failed the mains 2020 by quite good margin.
For 2021, I failed the prelims miserably. Rather the only achievement in the year was to get through the MA entrance exam of JNU. And it was the only savior, that revived my UPSC spirit again after the 4th debilitating failure. Sometimes surviving is the greatest achievement. It was that.
Coming to JNU, it is a fun place. I always felt so blessed to have so many good friends, with whom I could compete, with whom I could talk at length for hours and hours. It happened to be a good break from the monotonous isolated life in a single room. I joined the socialist life with my group of friends, who shared a lot in common. However demanding the day could be, no day there ever passed without laughing our hearts out. This was also the time to settle the financial worries and reduce the tension of personal battles.
It probable didn’t solve all the issues, but I learned to prioritize the issues at hand. As they say ‘you can do anything, but not everything’, we must not even attempt to do everything. It spoils even the one thing that we are capable of doing well. So, I somehow started cutting off what I could avoid. It took a long time, but it’s a skill worth learning.
In this zone I got back to UPSC preparation for prelims 2022. Somewhere around Feb 2022. The question pattern changed a bit, it was quite a surprise, but what I felt in exam hall as if I was well prepared for the surprise. Along with the MA classes and work, I had managed to secure decent time on my stopwatch for studying. It paid off and I got through prelims again.
If it was a Hindi movie script, the hero would clear the mains and interview with good rank in this very attempt. Life, however, isn’t a Hindi film. It has many plots and subplots. There exist some 1000 shades of all colors between the binaries of success and failures.
Whatever I could do, I did for the mains 2022. Wrote some tests (though much less than what I should have). Long story short, I didn’t qualify even this Mains. Rather the gap between my score and the cut off was way too high.
So the story of these 5 attempts seemed the saga of Sisyphus. Much like Sisyphus, I embarked on a relentless journey filled with ups and downs, hopes and heartbreaks, determination, and despair. The boulder, our hopes and dreams, feels impossibly heavy at times. Yet, like Sisyphus, we continue to push it, inching ever closer to our goal.
So here are points that I would like to tell my younger self in 2018-
• You don’t fail on the exam day, you fail in 100 days period prior to it. And it just means you should be able to be consistent for those 100 days, not that you should study 15 hours every day.
• Toppers aren’t coming from other planet, they just somehow maintain the above average level of discipline. They also falter, they also forget, they also feel terribly bad at times, and they also fear the exam as much as you do.
• Your surroundings and your peace of mind are the most crucial aspects deciding your efficiency. Either you would learn to cut off what’s burdening you, or it would sink you and your hopes.
• Almost all around you are better than you in something. Someone is better in articulation, some other in making good notes, some in recalling facts and some in interpreting things. The point however is, you don’t have to be better than all of them, you just have to be ‘good enough’ in checking off you ‘to-do list’ at the end of the day. Read that again.
• The ‘to-do list’ is the most amazing thing inventing by whoever it was invented. The best way to utilise this, is to realise the 70-80% of its goals. Don’t set too high goals that you don’t even cover 20%, nor too small that you are completing it every day.
• ‘Breaks are must’. They save you from breaking down. Good healthy discussions, laughing out loudly, and talking with those whom you can match your vibes are some good ways of having ‘healthy breaks. When taking breaks, give break to logical mind, think illogically. Just so that you can laugh.
• Writing always help. It is best way to recall things, it calms you down. It improves you expression and it cuts the clutter. It personal battles like case studies to solve. When you write something, it gets broken into parts, and you realise that ‘whole is not bigger than sum of its parts’.
• You can improve a lot in some aspects of life, that doesn’t translate into you doing well in all other aspects of life. Just like that in UPSC mains you don’t get through if you are good in one or two paper, you have to have above average performance in ALL THE PAPERS. So, learn to do justice with all the papers.
• And last but not the least (I don’t know why we use this in last point though), life has thousand ways to make you understand what you need to understand. Until you understand that properly, you don’t go beyond that.
The journey so far has been one filled with trials and tribulations, moments of doubt and despair, but it has also been a journey of laughs, growth, resilience and perseverance. Each of those previous attempts has been a stepping stone, probably preparing me for this very moment, when the air is filled with anticipation.
Thank you if you have read this till here. you can leave a comment too.
I would like to end this write up with a poetry by Faiz which I cherish so deeply
