they give crowns to those who finish. That’s why there is a graduation ceremony in college
after a student has completed a course. And it really doesn’t matter how you finished or what you went through to finish or how long it took you to finish; all that matters is the fact that you have finished. The degree certificate you receive from college does not mention how many times you attempted and failed an exam or how many nights you sacrificed your sleep to study or how long it took you to complete the course; even though that may be the
details, the degree certificate will only commend you on the fact that you finished the course.Starting something is one thing but finishing is something entirely different. Many of us have great ideas, amazing plans and marvelous dreams to pursue but how many of us have hauled ourselves all the way to the finish line to see those ideas, plans and dreams become a reality? Not so many of us, isn’t it? Any start comes with a myriad of expectations and excitement. People start relationships in colleges and at work places, but how many of these
ultimately culminate in marriage? None of them! I have seen people start businesses and companies but it doesn’t take long before I hear news that they are closing them down. Excitement about starting something new may avert our minds from thinking aptly about
equipping ourselves well enough with the requisites necessary for us to finish what we started. We just bump into things without being mindful of what lies ahead or what it takes to finish. We end up on a wild goose chase of our pursuits trying our hands on just about every thing and any thing we see as an opportunity that crosses our paths. That’s why we have career counseling in colleges to guide students while making career decisions. Just because you like being a doctor doesn’t necessarily mean you should pursue medicine. You may love to do fine art or music but it may not be what you would need for your law degree.

One of the many reasons for giving up on a pursuit is the discouragement as a result of
failure. Surely every one of us at some point in life has ever failed in something or the other. Failure in itself should not overwhelm you to prematurely end a pursuit but should rather be reckoned as a stepping stone. Failing exams need not be a death knell to the intellectual process. Certainly no one walks into an exam room determined to fail, so giving up on a
course just because you failed an exam is comparably worse than failing the exam itself and it’s tantamount to academic suicide. You would neither be the first nor the last to have failed an exam an if you choose to give up on courses each time you fail exams, you may end up never doing any course after all and your time would be wasted. It’s true that everyone fears failure, but we ought to know that breakthroughs also depend on it.

I quote Samuel Smiles, a Scottish author and reformer who once said that ‘We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what we will do, by finding out what we shouldn’t do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery’. So if you keep looking back at your past failures with a sense of regret, you may end up being discouraged to finish your course.

Time, like failure, is another equally dissuading factor to finishing something. Many of us do
not heed to the famous ‘triple P’ mantra of ‘Patience Pains but Pays’ because we don’t want to go through the pain all the way till the end. You are worried that by the time you finish your PhD you
would be ‘too old’ to get married or to start working and so you desperately try to look for ways to cut the many years short but all end in vain. How long it takes you to finish should not worry you as much as finding the time to finish. We often put ourselves in positions where there is so much to do but with so little time. You are pursuing a PhD; you have a family to take care of and at the same time you are working full time. How many of so much would you be able to handle at the same time? You may end up not finishing any of your pursuits.