Running towards embarrassment!

A few days back, I recalled a small incident that took place while I was in school. I was in the ninth grade; our terminal examinations were over and we would be receiving the evaluated papers. I remember it was the mathematics period and after a lifelong hate relationship with math, it was that time in my life when we both were madly in love with each other (:P). My best friend and I were both nervous and reassured each other that we would score some decent marks.

I can’t recollect my performance in the paper, because when my best friend received hers, it was scored 07/100. I remember going through her sheets rigorously, determined that the teacher had done some kind of mistake. After immense scrutiny, I gave up and not knowing what to do, me and my friend both just sat there in silence.

At the end of the class, the teacher came to my friend and said, “Didn’t expect this from you. I was so confused whether to mark 70 or 07” . I don’t exactly remember who started first, but the moment our teacher left, my best friend and I , burst out laughing. We both found the situation so surreal and couldn’t process what just happened. My friend couldn’t stop saying ‘07 or 70’. Within a few minutes, the entire class was laughing at the situation.

As a 90s kid, I can’t explain how scary it was, to even think of scoring a single digit out of 100, that too in mathematics. The could be many reasons behind it- being shamed by teachers or facing the wrath of parents or falling short of one’s own expectations. But never in my life had I expected somebody to be so chill and take the situation as easily as my best friend did.

As kids some of us, in varying intensity were uptight about studies or academic performance. When we grow up we become obsessed with our relationships, career, and the tiniest things that could go wrong. Not realizing that it is okay to mess things up sometimes and our problems or the situations that we end up in are not as bad as we think it is. It is okay to have done embarrassing things in life, you get to tell your grandkids about it. Later, my best friend would mention her parents (who did care about marks ) laughed too. I still think about this incident from time to time, 10 years later it still cracks me up .

This also reminds me of a a quote from Modern Family

“Run towards embarrassment not away from it and you’ll take away its power.” — Jay Pritchett