To go for goals is gloom, to fantasize a future is frustration || Acharya Prashant, with youth(2014)

Question: When we fail to achieve our goals, we generally feel nervous; we feel down. A kind of gloom comes upon us. How to keep positive at that time?

Acharya Prashant: You are asking for the impossible.

If you have been relentlessly chasing a goal, thinking that it is the most important thing in the world, and if it does not turn out as you want it to turn out, then it is impossible not to feel frustrated. You have yourself created the situation, the ground for that.

You have declared to yourself that the most important thing in the world is this particular event, and it must happen. And now if the event does not happen – which in most cases won’t, because the universe is governed by multiple cause-effects, an entire vast infinite network of cause and effects; out of these cause and effects, small and large events happen, they do not happen out of your or any other individual’s desire. So the results of any effort are unpredictable – in spite of your best efforts, you will often find that you do not get the desired result, and you will declare that a failure, and you will feel very sad. “I tried so hard, it didn’t happen.”

Remember the dictum that, “Hard work leads to success. So work hard,” is entirely misplaced. Neither hope brings you success, nor does hard work bring you success. You may keep working hard and harder, but existence has its own wills and desires. Outcomes and events are governed, as I said, by an infinite number of factors. You can never decide. You can never be the master of what is going to happen.