How do we deal with fear of success because after success, failure will come?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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So, how do we deal with fear of success? You know, if we become successful, then after that we will feel fearful that fear of that success, what will happen after that? That fear actually. That fear that after success if we face failure, how will we deal with that? So, I would say that there are 2-3 different things here. First is that both success and failure are not entirely in our hands.
We can work hard, but often there are factors beyond us which determine the success. So, in a cricket match, say a player may play very well, but if range comes, we can’t win the match. So, performance matters, but performance alone is not what matters.
Alone doesn’t matter. Something more than performance also matters. That is the spiritual side.
There is, they just said, our efforts and God’s grace, both together, they produce a result. So, if we understand this point, then what happens is, we focus on our contribution. In every situation, there is a contribution that we make, and there is an expectation that we have.
So, when Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, work without attachment to results. That does not mean that don’t care for results. What it means is, that we can set goals, we can have ambitions, but we don’t become attached to the result in the sense that the result is something which will come after the work is done.
The goal is something which we set before we do the work. So, what happens, if we become attached to the result, then if the result doesn’t come, we become frustrated. But, if our focus is, Krishna says, do your work responsibly.
That means have a mood of contribution. Let me contribute to my work. Let me complete this point.
So, what happens is, if I think, I have this talent, I have this education, I have this position, how best can I contribute in this? So, if I have that mood of contribution, then, if the result comes, that’s great, that’s success. If the result doesn’t come, then, still, I made my contribution. And I will grow by that.
So, we have to… So, I become doer, not the observer, or I become observer, not the doer? No, we are the doers, but we are not the sole doers. We are the doers, just like, say, when a couple desire to have a child. At that time, they unite.
That is their part. But just because there is union, doesn’t mean there is conception. There is something higher also required.
So, similarly, we are the doers, but we are not the sole doers. We alone don’t do the things. Our performance matters, but there is something else also matters.
So, the ego comes, the ego is what delights in success, and the ego is what laments failure. But, if I understand that, actually, I am playing my part, but there is much more also happening, which determines the results. So, my soul is not ego, or my soul is ego? No, okay.
The word ego has different meanings. The word ego… Failure comes to my ego, actually. Okay, now, see, the sense of I-ness, that is innate to us.
I am. That sense of I-ness is innate. That’s our sense of identity.
So, in that sense, that cannot be given up. That sense of I-ness comes from the soul, the awareness that I am a being, that I am a person, I am a conscious person, that comes from the soul. But along with that, there is the projection of the I-ness on certain things.
So, one of my friends is doing his PhD in the in the post-celebrity lives of sports players. Because sports players, their life, they become famous, by 35-40 they have to retire. And what do they, unless they can redefine themselves, unless they find some other way to channel their energy, other sense of definition and purpose, they just go into depression.
Their life becomes pointless. So, now, what happens is that when we as conscious beings are here, the ego causes us to identify with somebody. So, by my ego, I may identify that I am a great speaker.
By somebody else’s ego, they may identify that I am a wealthy businessman. Somebody else may identify that I am so and so. So, now, this is a secondary conception.
I am a soul who may be speaking and I may be speaking well. I may be a businessman, I may be doing well in my business. But essentially, I am a soul.
So, when we identify with something which we are not intrinsically, when I think I am a very clever person, I think I am a very talented person. Now, those are talents which I have. I may have them.
But I am not that. But how to get rid of that fear that nobody rejects me, which is already applied to me. No, I said that if you focus on expectation, then that is when success and failure will agitate us.
But if you focus on contribution. Only contribution. That doesn’t mean we don’t care for success.
But that is we are not dependent on success. It’s just like a student who is studying to just pass the exam and a student who is studying to learn the subject. Now, the student who is studying to learn the subject will also do well in the exams.
But a student who is simply studying to pass the exams, after that if they have to do a PhD in that subject or somebody becomes a doctor, but they have studied just to pass the exams. Then in the real life, when they are treating people, they will be in a mess. So, now studying to learn the subject is being contribution driven.
Studying to get marks is expectation driven. When we study to learn the subject, we will get the marks also. But that’s not our driving force.
Our driving force is to learn the subject. Similarly, if you focus in your career that I have been given some abilities by God. He has given me something and let me make a contribution.
Let me, those patients who come to me, those people with whom I am connected, let me offer them my best. Naturally, that will give me some results. But my sense of satisfaction, let it come from the contribution that I make.
That will actually happen if you raise your vision to the spiritual level. That means, you see that my success is not just in getting this result, but it is in pleasing Krishna. Now, what we are is God’s gift to us.
What we become is our gift to God. It’s not what we gain, what we become. So, if you become more competent, if you become more better contributor, then you will connect better with God in a mood of devotion.
That will give us a higher satisfaction.