FIVE REASONS YOU MUSTN’T ACCEPT THAT LIFE HAS DEFEATED YOU
One interesting phenomenon in life is that there is
nobody who has made it, be it in business, career, profession, finance, or
whatever, who had not suffered some unfair deal at some point. Like the coin,
life has two sides, the head and the tail, the good and the bad sides, the
success and failure sides.
Everyone who has attained fame, wealth, or power today
also has some sad part of his or her story. You can understand why Winston
Churchill, one of the greatest Prime Ministers of United Kingdom, said that “Success is not final, failure is not
fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Michael Jordan is a well-known name. A former
professional basketball player, perhaps the greatest basketball player of all
time, he failed many times. This is his testimony, “I’ve missed more than 9000
shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to
take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again
in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Also, the
famed author of Rich Dad Poor Dad,
one of the greatest books ever written, had a number of setbacks before he hit
it big. Between 1977 and 1980, his companies, two of them, went bankrupt. In
1994 he had to sell another company due to some challenges. It was in 1997,
when he was 50, that he started his investing and writing career, a venture
that has established him as a multi-millionaire.
These are the five reasons you
must accept that life has defeated you, irrespective of the state you are now.
(1) Most setbacks have treasure in them. Frances E. W. Harper, a United States writer said
that, “Apparent failure may hold in its
rough shell the germs of a success that will blossom in time, and bear fruit
throughout eternity.” In the eyes of many, Nelson Mandela had “failed” in life
in the 27 years he was incarcerated. But in that seeming “failure” was born the
total and lasting emancipation of South Africans from apartheid.
(2) Problems
are tests and examinations that reveal us to ourselves: Disappointments don’t come to mangle us; they come to
reveal our strength to us. Proverbs
24:10 records that, “If thou faint in the
day of adversity, thy strength is small.” Some people think that they are
courageous and resilient, but in the face of small challenge, they throw in the
towel. So when you suffer some defeat, don’t believe that you’re finished. It
was Richard Nixon, a former American President who said that, “A man is not finished when he is
defeated. He is finished when he quits.”
Even in
conventional examinations in school, there is always a resit, that is, another chance to write the examination and pass.
So no failure is the end of the road. It is only an opportunity to rise again.
In the words of Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, “Our greatest glory is not in
never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Setbacks also reveal other people to you. Do you want to know people you
can trust, people you can team up with or partner with to do business or any
other thing? I mean people that can be a great asset to you? Then, wait for
them at the arena of disappointments. You’ll discover their true colour.
(3) Difficulties are opportunities in disguise: If
there is anything that has failed so many times, more than perhaps anything
else, it is history. Wars, famine,
slave trade, murders, floods, earthquakes, economic downturns, inflation,
unemployment, epidemics, endemics, crimes, to name a few - these are all
historical setbacks. But in all, history keeps standing up, keeps forging
ahead, and keeps making progress in economic recoveries, peace and
reconciliation, relief efforts, scientific and technological advancement, wealth
creation, and so on.
Indeed,
history is consistent triumph over failures. If history was discouraged at any
point in time to give up because of failure, we wouldn’t have the civilization
and fast-paced development we have today. History sees every setback as an
opportunity to improve on tactics, change strategies, double or even triple
efforts, become more creative and innovative, and so on. You have to learn this
great lesson from history.
(4) Your attitude is more important than any
failure: Another reason you don’t have to accept that life has defeated you
even in the face of seeming failure is that your attitude is more important
than the facts of the situation. Zig Ziglar says that, “It’s not what happens to you but what you make of
what happens to you that will ultimately determine your success in all areas of
life.” As a matter of fact, it is our
attitude that turns stumbling blocks into stepping stones.
(5)
Failure produces experiences that are
our best teacher: There is so much to learn from adversity. Rather than
despair, analyze
every failure to find its root cause, see where you missed it, or what you
failed to do or did wrongly. Note the changes you have to make, where and when
to make them. In failure you learn what
didn’t work.
It is said of Thomas Edison that he made
10,000 experiments, in his attempt to invent the electric light bulb. When he was
asked by a journalist whether he considered himself a failure after so many
trials without success, he answered that he had not failed, but leant 10,000
ways the thing wouldn’t work. Eventually, he went ahead to make the invention.
0 comments