Nine Consolations: Failures as a Signpost to Success
WHAT IS SUCCESS? Is it the big house and car, lazing every day on a tropical beach, millions in the bank so you don't have to work? Perhaps it's not what you think. Read on...
1. Success is not an end result, but the song of your ongoing endeavour, which no-one and nothing can arrest.
If you have failed repeatedly, but you are still trying, you are a success.
Take two people:
A starts with many advantages, a stable and prosperous upbringing, an elite education, which in turn helps them walk into a lucrative career as a foregone conclusion. Due to the superior nutrition of their forbears and themselves, they enjoy above average health and levels of energy.
They consequently enjoy above average financial success with minimal effort. They live in a fine home in a prosperous neighbourhood, like the one they were brought up in, or a little better, since they were able to invest the money inherited from the sale of their parents homes into their own.
When they travel they generally eat fine lunches and stay in fine hotels, and their company picks up the tab. They may appear to be making sterling efforts, but really their vaunted sweat is a way of their justifying the success they would enjoy with minimal effort anyway to themselves and to the world. Due to the many advantages they were handed by life without effort, everything pretty much comes easy for A, although they act as if it doesn't, as if all they have is purely down to their own merit, in comparison with B.
B starts with many disadvantages, an unstable and poor upbringing,an inadequate and disrupted education, where the expectation is that they will be lucky to obtain any poorly paid job they can get.
They suffer prolonged poor health for a large part of their life. Consequently they can only afford to live in poorly maintained rented housing where they suffer the surrounding stress of deprivation, inadequate services and amenities, and a high level of vandalism and street crime. They have windows broken just for the hell of it, their family is abused by teenage gangs when they walk down their own street (they cannot afford a car) because they are law-abiding and behave decently. Their family relationships are put under severe strain due to the stress of their living conditions.
But B refuses to be brainwashed by the system's expectations for them. They overcome their upbringing and adopt decent standards of behaviour. They supplement their inadequate schooling by becoming an avid reader of books from the free public library. Even though they are denied any career for which their ability suits them due to prejudice against their background, they refuse to be labelled as factory fodder.
They enroll in night school, and through sheer effort and hard work overcome their inadequate basic education, graduating at the head of the class, above many born with many more advantages, like A, who do the minimum, or simply coast. B gets severely ill but ignores it, and when they can no longer ignore it, they keep their mind focused on finer aspirations, and refuse to see or think of themselves as ill.
In contrast to A, who's main life focus is on their personal goals, what they want to be, do and have, B's main life focus is on helping others. They provide or obtain services and equipment for disadvantaged people they know would benefit from it, most of their thoughts and efforts are directed to realising the dreams of others, and they are constantly broke because of this. At some personal risk, they challenge law-breaking by the deprived teens that live around them, and support them towards self-respect and better behaviour by rekindling the self-esteem and respect they are denied by everyone else. They overcome the strain put on their family relationships, continue to support their children every day in every way possible, and form a strong coalition with their spouse which resists the stress of their difficult circumstances and the view that A and their kind have of them, and maintains and even grows their self-respect above that of A, to whom, flying in the face of circumstances, they become eventually as a result of resisting all that would degrade them, superior in intelligence, understanding, wisdom and ability, although A would never acknowledge it. To the end of their life, they continue to struggle against enormous odds, showing resilience, humility, and a 'die trying' spirit, building independence and an imperishable spirit worthy to be an example to others and to ensure their immortality. Their primary concern remains the welfare of others, those who are in their care, and those who suffer the most both close by and anywhere on Earth.
Character A is typical of millions of people residing in the prosperous suburbs of the western world.
B is a Character compilation of positive behaviour shown in the face of typical problems suffered by many millions more, especially in poorer countries, but in the western world too.
Which Character and Life would you deem most worthy to be called 'a Success'?
2. If you haven't succeeded yet, but you keep trying, the odds are that the delay in your success compared to that of others, is due to factors outside your control. Your supposed failures and your mistakes you suffer in common with the majority of the human race. If you learn from them, improve and plough on regardless, you are part of a golden minority who simply ignore the odds stacked against them and constantly try to refine.
3. Any landing you can walk away from is a good one. When you believe this, pick yourself up repeatedly and plod on, realising failure is only temporarily deferred success, you are as close to total success as anyone ever comes.
4. When in the pursuit of noble and worthwhile aims you risk repeatedly, falling flat on your face, this is bold and graceful and no disgrace.
5. The truly and admirably successful have always ploughed on through failure after failure. Therefore your repeated failures are not failures, but the true road, precursor and preparation for success.
6. Every failure, examined, contains the seeds of success greater and different from that at which you originally aimed. Therefore do not judge seemingly negative events too harshly, but keep an open mind as to their eventual value.
7. The mark left on our character by repeated failure, mishap, ignominy, misunderstanding and mass ignorance depends on your perception of its meaning and your response to it. It can either drag down your life or build your soul.
8. All crises are also opportunities to learn life's most painful lessons, which you can then store for later use, and also pass on to others. Lessons in how to avoid failure, pave the way to your eventual success.
9. Ultimately, the Success of your life in historical terms will be measured not in terms of the size of your house, your car, your bank account or your ego. The final yardstick against which you and your life may be measured is the character, endurance, self-sacrifice, presence, nobility, total being and example, of those who were and still are, truly Great.
1. Success is not an end result, but the song of your ongoing endeavour, which no-one and nothing can arrest.
If you have failed repeatedly, but you are still trying, you are a success.
Take two people:
A starts with many advantages, a stable and prosperous upbringing, an elite education, which in turn helps them walk into a lucrative career as a foregone conclusion. Due to the superior nutrition of their forbears and themselves, they enjoy above average health and levels of energy.
They consequently enjoy above average financial success with minimal effort. They live in a fine home in a prosperous neighbourhood, like the one they were brought up in, or a little better, since they were able to invest the money inherited from the sale of their parents homes into their own.
When they travel they generally eat fine lunches and stay in fine hotels, and their company picks up the tab. They may appear to be making sterling efforts, but really their vaunted sweat is a way of their justifying the success they would enjoy with minimal effort anyway to themselves and to the world. Due to the many advantages they were handed by life without effort, everything pretty much comes easy for A, although they act as if it doesn't, as if all they have is purely down to their own merit, in comparison with B.
B starts with many disadvantages, an unstable and poor upbringing,an inadequate and disrupted education, where the expectation is that they will be lucky to obtain any poorly paid job they can get.
They suffer prolonged poor health for a large part of their life. Consequently they can only afford to live in poorly maintained rented housing where they suffer the surrounding stress of deprivation, inadequate services and amenities, and a high level of vandalism and street crime. They have windows broken just for the hell of it, their family is abused by teenage gangs when they walk down their own street (they cannot afford a car) because they are law-abiding and behave decently. Their family relationships are put under severe strain due to the stress of their living conditions.
But B refuses to be brainwashed by the system's expectations for them. They overcome their upbringing and adopt decent standards of behaviour. They supplement their inadequate schooling by becoming an avid reader of books from the free public library. Even though they are denied any career for which their ability suits them due to prejudice against their background, they refuse to be labelled as factory fodder.
They enroll in night school, and through sheer effort and hard work overcome their inadequate basic education, graduating at the head of the class, above many born with many more advantages, like A, who do the minimum, or simply coast. B gets severely ill but ignores it, and when they can no longer ignore it, they keep their mind focused on finer aspirations, and refuse to see or think of themselves as ill.
In contrast to A, who's main life focus is on their personal goals, what they want to be, do and have, B's main life focus is on helping others. They provide or obtain services and equipment for disadvantaged people they know would benefit from it, most of their thoughts and efforts are directed to realising the dreams of others, and they are constantly broke because of this. At some personal risk, they challenge law-breaking by the deprived teens that live around them, and support them towards self-respect and better behaviour by rekindling the self-esteem and respect they are denied by everyone else. They overcome the strain put on their family relationships, continue to support their children every day in every way possible, and form a strong coalition with their spouse which resists the stress of their difficult circumstances and the view that A and their kind have of them, and maintains and even grows their self-respect above that of A, to whom, flying in the face of circumstances, they become eventually as a result of resisting all that would degrade them, superior in intelligence, understanding, wisdom and ability, although A would never acknowledge it. To the end of their life, they continue to struggle against enormous odds, showing resilience, humility, and a 'die trying' spirit, building independence and an imperishable spirit worthy to be an example to others and to ensure their immortality. Their primary concern remains the welfare of others, those who are in their care, and those who suffer the most both close by and anywhere on Earth.
Character A is typical of millions of people residing in the prosperous suburbs of the western world.
B is a Character compilation of positive behaviour shown in the face of typical problems suffered by many millions more, especially in poorer countries, but in the western world too.
Which Character and Life would you deem most worthy to be called 'a Success'?
2. If you haven't succeeded yet, but you keep trying, the odds are that the delay in your success compared to that of others, is due to factors outside your control. Your supposed failures and your mistakes you suffer in common with the majority of the human race. If you learn from them, improve and plough on regardless, you are part of a golden minority who simply ignore the odds stacked against them and constantly try to refine.
3. Any landing you can walk away from is a good one. When you believe this, pick yourself up repeatedly and plod on, realising failure is only temporarily deferred success, you are as close to total success as anyone ever comes.
4. When in the pursuit of noble and worthwhile aims you risk repeatedly, falling flat on your face, this is bold and graceful and no disgrace.
5. The truly and admirably successful have always ploughed on through failure after failure. Therefore your repeated failures are not failures, but the true road, precursor and preparation for success.
6. Every failure, examined, contains the seeds of success greater and different from that at which you originally aimed. Therefore do not judge seemingly negative events too harshly, but keep an open mind as to their eventual value.
7. The mark left on our character by repeated failure, mishap, ignominy, misunderstanding and mass ignorance depends on your perception of its meaning and your response to it. It can either drag down your life or build your soul.
8. All crises are also opportunities to learn life's most painful lessons, which you can then store for later use, and also pass on to others. Lessons in how to avoid failure, pave the way to your eventual success.
9. Ultimately, the Success of your life in historical terms will be measured not in terms of the size of your house, your car, your bank account or your ego. The final yardstick against which you and your life may be measured is the character, endurance, self-sacrifice, presence, nobility, total being and example, of those who were and still are, truly Great.
7 September 2006
World Copyright © Kee Decemgero
* * *
Never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins
Native American wisdom saying
posted by Kee Decemgero at 10:35 PM
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