Can we look beyond numbers?

Every year, when CBSE announces its Class 12 results, all we see are numbers.How much did the topper score? What’s the pass percentage? Who topped the school? Whose photo will make it to the newspapers? And that’s just the outside world.At home, you answer calls from relatives who are secretly hoping you scored lower than their children – children who finished school decades ago and are doing perfectly fine in life, regardless of their marks.I still remember the day my results came out, which also feels like 10,000 years ago. My hands were shaking, and my pulse was racing. Not because I doubted my performance, but because I couldn’t handle the pressure of knowing what everyone else would think.Looking back now, I realise that was the hardest part.People remember your score. They remember the college you got into because of that score. But nobody really asks whether you slept enough that year. Whether you ate on time. Whether you were okay. If your parents were divorcing, if you were undergoing medical treatment, or if you had lost a parent. Whether it would have been okay if you had scored less.The truth is, this is the first major test most of us face in life. And if you scored less than what you expected – or less thanyour annoying cousin, whom you probably won’t even care about in 15 years – please don’t be too hard on yourself.It is okay. Whether you scored 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, or 100 percent – or even if you did not pass this time.Life is much bigger than marks. And yes, that is easier said than believed. But we also no longer live in a world of only conventional careers. People are building lives through content creation, gaming, startups, freelancing, and careers our parents didn’t even know existed. We spend hours scrolling through social media, watching creators build entire careers from simply sharing their lives online.You may not get your dream college, and I am not undermining the hard work students put in to achieve what society calls “good marks.” I am only saying this: be a little kinder to yourself. And kinder to your kids.They will figure things out. And if they scored well according to you, celebrate them. But celebrate the effort, not just the numbers.Because we forget the marks eventually. What often stays is the anxiety, the shaking hands, and the pressure.It is their first time facing life, too. The least we can do is be kind.