Take a long deep breath, keep your books aside and focus on these words — IT’S OKAY TO FAIL.

Ignore the aching pit in your stomach which reminds you that you couldn’t get admission in the college of your choice.

Ignore the voices in your head which say that you could have gotten an ‘A’ in your physics examination if you studied more.

Ignore those looks of your classmates that judge you on the basis of your marks in Mathematics.

Because it’s alright.

Bad grades are alright.

Failing in alright.

Even adults – our parents, teachers, elder sibling – whom we consider our role models, had failed; and not once, but multiple times.

What no one tells you is that it’s okay.

Failures are a part of our lives. They don’t define us, but make us into the people we are in the end.

We have been told since childhood that marks matter the most. Wherever you go – college, university, job – everyone asks for your marksheets.

But the reality is, the thing that you end up doing most in your life has nothing to do with marks.

If you didn’t get admission in the college of your dreams, life isn’t over. If your destination is set, you can take any path to reach it.

The key is to not lose hope.

And Lenovo has started an important discourse in this regard.

With its ‘Back to College’ campaign, it asked parents to open up and talk to their kids about their failures.

As student life is often envisioned as a happy-go-lucky period, devoid of the worries and responsibilities that define adulthood, Lenovo attempts to burst this bubble.

Indian families are known to set incredibly high expectations of their children. Being a country with the world’s highest suicide rate for youth aged 15 to 29, according to a 2012 Lancet report, there was a need for urgent interventions.

Tremendous pressure, limited opportunities and fierce competition, force students into striving for unrealistic goals. So this year, Lenovo did not just speak to the ones who were ‘ready for college’ but to even those who could not make it to the stratospherically high cut-off lists.

While students feel that bad marks is the end of the world, it found a way to make the situation lighter.

In a country where futures are determined by mark sheets, Lenovo asked parents to give their children what they need most.

#GiftThemBelief