It was my result day, the day that could have been perfect but my maths score decided that this day shouldn’t be a happy occasion for me.

It’s not that I didn’t practice. I started to practice maths questions as soon as I heard about our exams. However, I got fed up with them — all these numbers, mathematical equations and symbols made things difficult for me.

One hour, two hours and three hours passed. Can you believe me, I used to spend three hours doing only a bunch of mathematical questions! I started attempting the question correctly, got stuck in a step of the solution, and switched to and fro between the book and my solution, only to find I had been doing it all wrong. Then I had to start all over again, solving the question again and moving to another question. As a matter of fact, I can’t seem to get anything right on the first attempt, it takes a few attempts to get even simple maths sums right!

Apparently, my mum didn’t scold me because I scored better in my other subjects, but she demanded that I solve a full mathematics exercise from the text book daily and show it to her.

Similarly, an hour flew by and there I was, stuck in the second question.

“Ahmed, what are you doing?” my elder brother, Hamza questioned as he entered my room. Hamza was at work earlier.

“Nothing,” I growled.

“Want to come with me to the supermarket?”

“Yeah. I terribly want to,” I quickly agreed as I was desperate for a break.

The supermarket was 15 minutes’ walk away from our house, so Hamza wanted us to walk there.

“What a stingy person. We might have driven there, but no, he doesn’t want to!” I grumpily thought.

“Ahmed, things don’t go right every time. Our motivation for a particular task should be strong enough to coerce us into completing that task,” he suddenly spoke, taking me aback.

“So?” I sheepishly replied, embarrassed that I had been thinking bad things about him in my head.

“I saw you. Doing the questions. I know you were troubled by it, but you don’t have to lose your enthusiasm because of a tiny setback. Do you know, any failure can lead to success if you use it for improving yourself? You just need to use it the right way. Solving questions only isn’t going to help you. You need to delve into the topic when you study, not just read them. And yes, don’t read them with your eyes, read them with your mind. Ask yourself, do I understand this particular statement? Can I apply it to questions on my own? If you don’t understand, you can always ask your teacher, or friends, or even me,” he explained, trying to encourage me.

“I could try to study the same way, but I get upset by those wrong answers and give up midway,” I retorted.

“Okay, why don’t you try to think of maths as the game you play online? Do you give up on any level when you fail in it? No. Because you know that you’d reach another level, with new features, if you surpass that level. It’s a sort of reward for winning. Why don’t you try to reward yourself when you get a question right? Maybe with a bar of chocolate, or perhaps five minutes more time for gaming? But you need to keep yourself in check. Don’t cheat on yourself if you really want to score better. Also, success doesn’t look for success, but at the gradual progress of yours. As long as there’s progress, there’s nothing to worry about,” Hamza patiently guided me.

“Sure. I will try that,” I exclaimed, full of enthusiasm to make that strategy work.

So the next time I opened the textbook, I carefully read every line of the page. To my astonishment, I couldn’t understand many of the statements. That was strange, since when the teacher explained it in the class, I did get it. Therefore, I decided to ask the teacher to explain that exercise again. And then on another day, I started off with the questions in the maths book, following the strategy of Hamza bhai.

Although I couldn’t get full marks in my class test, I scored much better than I usually did. After this, I was more motivated to work, to stay persistent and continue to work a bit harder.

Remember, you aren’t bad at anything, you may be using the wrong approach. Correct that and you would see yourself marching forward.

Published in Dawn, Young World, July 29th, 2023