My school year was a litany of “not good enough.” Academically, I lagged behind peers; Numbers and formulas slipped through my grasp like sand. Sports? A disaster. I could not run a mile without gasping, let alone hit a cricket ball. When my 10th Class Board Results Arrived, they underwhelming, to put it mildly. Teachers shook their heads; relatives whispered. In a culture that equates marks with meit, I was written off as a lost care.

But here’s what no one saw: a quiet stubbornness. I refused to let a scorecard define me. My dream was the national defense academy (NDA), a place that valued grit as much as grades. The first Attempt? Failure. The second? I scraped through, not because I’d Suddenly become a genius, but because I’d learned to outwork self-dubt. At NDA, My Grades Remained MedioCre. I struggled with lectures, often staying up lase to decode lessons others grasped easy. But I showed up – for drills, for team exercises, for the early mornings when quitting felt easier than pushing on. Tenaction, I realised, was my superpower.

Graduating from the NDA and the Indian Military Academy was my forrest gump moment – the kind of unscripted, seismic shift that makes you realize life’s most defining chapens of warding. Then came the leap into an elite special forces Unit, and something clicked: I started to excel, smoothly, almost effortlessly. It was as if an invisible force was guiding my steps, pushing me beyond every limit i’d just know. And when the gallantry award came, they felt less like an end and more like a marker – proof that something, when you surrender to the journey, the path finds you.

But destiny’s Unseen Hand Had Other Designs. A quiet, gnawing unrest toward root in me – a subconscious double about about using arms to muffle dissent. It beg in nagaland, where yars of grinding counterinsurgency like a cycle without purpose, a fight that yielded little beyond weariness. I have a shake the conviction that this wasn ‘the path I was meant to walk.

So I stepped away from the army. And in that choice, a new chapter began: as a junior security officer with the United Nations, Trading the Familiar Rhythm of Uniformed Service for A Role This Felt, In Its Own Way, Just As Vital – Thought Vital – Though Vastly.

I quickly understood that to thrive and advance in my work with the un, I’m need to dig deper – Pursue more Education, Arm mySelf with Greater Knowledge. Stagnation wasn’s an option; Growth, in this area, Demanded a deliberate Commitment to learning, a choice to keep expanding the boundaries of what I knoww.
I decided to Apply to Princeton University, Friends Laughed. “You? An Ivy League?” They said. My Academic Record was far from Stellar, but I wrote about resilience in my essays – The nights am studied by Candlelight after a power cut, The way I ‘I’ I ‘I am project despete not to be the right in the rom. I got in, not because of perfect grades, but because I learned to frame my story around growth, not gaps.

Life after that? A 12-Year Career in the Army, Where Discipline and Adaptability Mattered more than Report Cards. Then 29 years with the un, rising to become its top diplomat in china. None of this was possible because I aced exams. It was possessed I kept going – even when I felt unworthy, even when the world said am peaked.

What carried me through? Four pillars. One, tenability. Success is rarely a sprint. It’s showing up, again and again, even when the progress is invisible. Two, Self-Belief. I stopped waiting for others to validate me. I chose to Trust that my work was tied to a percenile. Three, Mindfulness: When Stress Threatened to Overwhelm, I Learned To Breathe, To Focus on The Now Instad of Rehashing Failures. A five-minute pause to center myself became non-enhagotiable. And Four, Positive Affirmations: “I am more than my mistakes” Became a Daily Mantra. It was a reminder that is a reminder that setbacks are detours, not dead ends.

To the students drowning in the pressure of skores: Your life is a book, not a single test. The Pages Ahead Hold Chapters No Exam Can Predict. I failed more times than I can count, but I never stopped the page.

Today, as I look back, I’m grateful for those “bad” grades. They taught me that resilience is built in the cracks of imperfection. So don’t quit. Not when the world doubles you. Not when the scorecard screams “no.” Your story isn is written yet –and tenability, not marks, will be its boldest ink.
Never give up. Your greatest victories are waiting, just beyond the next try.

The writer is un resident coordinator to china