“Like Columbus, you
can sail west and reach new lands by accident. But if you have charts, you can
do better, you can arrive at a destination decided upon in advance.” –Edward
Barney, Public Relations Guru
‘Kayode Oyero
There is something paralyzing and shattering about failure.
Though completely inevitable but wholly avoidable if its preventive panacea is identified
and applied.
Failure is synonymous to death in the heart-rending grieve
it arouse upon its arrival. The difference between failure and death is simply
that the latter is a termination so irrevocably, giving no chance for further
existence. But, for failure, it is a slap that weakens the body, infusing the
human mind and body with toxic sadness.
As humans whose psychology is efficiently functional, we groan,
wail, and throw ourselves into the abyss of many self-justifiable exclamations
when failure forcibly calls at our doorstep. While nipped by its sorrowful peg
on the rope of depression, our hearts lament in endless refrain ‘not-again!’,
‘why me?’, ‘enough is enough!’ amongst many other expressions of exasperation:
expressions that paint in graphical manner, the mosaic portrait of deep-rooted agony.
Upon its arrival: when knocked down by failure’s thudding
blow, the body is subjected to the pangs of emotive torture. The mind mourns
silently, bed-spreading distaste into the whole body like vile from a
ruminant’s bile mistakenly punctured by a butcher’s clinical knife during
animal cutting and cleansing. Failure comes in many disguised form. It could be
in the form of an unthinkable disappointment, an uncalculated defeat, an unanticipated
shortcoming, an unplanned job termination notice and a heartbreak caused by the
news of a sudden move-on notice from a significant second. Worthy of clarity is
that failure is failure regardless of how it presents itself. It is failure
once on awareness, the body mourns.
Helplessly we are in the dawn of his visitation. The heart,
as fragile as it is pumps grief into the whole body making it heavy and groggy
the same manner a bile as miniature and insignificant as it is efficiently
infuses the whole beef of a slaughtered animal with its bitterness.
Instantly, when the receptive organs of the ear and eye
receive the news of failure, the heart sends with immediacy, the shocking
tremor of the sad news rapidly into the body making it heavy and weighty. No
wonder it is said that bad news travels faster than good ones! No wonder bad
emotional state of the mind apprehends the normalness of body faster than good
ones! Truly, the inmost is the outmost!
When failure knocks, we turned downcast, being indoors
become an enclave to seek solace. Or should I say to hide our anguished and
tearful-torn face from the detection of the public, in an attempt to conceal
our predicament. “Don’t you get it? I need to be left alone!” we yell, at the
slightest opportunity, visiting our frustration on those around us as
pronounced sigh of hot aggression escapes our nostril.
At such hapless times, we unconsciously act out the
frustration-aggression theory that justifies the going bloody of a frustrated
soul. For the stoics who are perfectionists at enduring pain in silence, retreating
into the valley of seclusion, down the planes of starring endlessly with
unblinking gaze at the ceiling top become not a daily routine but a minute
routine. And for The Complainer who must attribute a reason, other than himself
for being the cause of his failure, you’ll hear his teeth grin as though grappling
with a stubborn muscled-meat: ‘things are hard’, ‘the turf is tough and rough’,
‘the government is insensitive in providing an atmosphere where one can thrive
with less-strive’ and ‘it is so and so that is responsible for my fatal fate because
he refused to give me so and so enablement’. Hmmn! Excuses and excuses, the
Complainer provides for the cause of his failure! What a mindset!
Now, let’s face failure right in the face!
Failure can be chronic and its clamp completely unavoidable
but preventable, no doubt about that. But Mister, why not re-visit your drawing
board when you reap the gaunt and malnourished yam of failure repeatedly and
almost ceaselessly in a certain area where others are harvesting astounding
feats? Get me, there’s a thick distinction between obstacles and failure.
Obstacles are cock-sure hurdles in the sprint race of any accomplishment while
failure is the result or to sound mildly humorous, the deserved prize of one’s
inability to navigate and surmount the roadblocks called obstacles.
Now to a very special Mr. Griever:
Dear Mr. Griever! Worry is suicidal to your soul. Why loll
in the bed of chagrin and despondency instead of changing your fate with this
pronouncement of faith: ‘Well, yesterday’s loss and failure is gone
and worry won‘t bring success or replace the loss, but hard work and strategic
planning will.’?
Again, I call on you, dear Mr. Griever! How long will you bury
your head in things of the past?
How long will you allow your feet to be mired in the moist
alluvium of past dissatisfying occurrences? – be it natural, circumstantial,
enemy-orchestrated or self-made.
How long will you continue to blame people for your present
lackluster and harsh condition?
How long will it take you to realize that your present un-envious
state is not your fate if only you know what you have to know and do what you
have to do with what you know at the time it has to be done in order to get
what you want in life?
How long will you continue to reel in complacency of the identity:
“Victim of circumstance” when in actual fact, you can be a proud bearer of the
identity: “Victor of circumstance” if only you live with the article of faith
that you’re a Winner even if your chances go thinner?
How long will it take you to realize that your methodology
is destined for nothing but failure and in essence, deserves to be dumped into
the gutter for a well-crafted and feasibly planned and comprehensive strategy?
How long, I repeat, how long will it take you to believe in
yourself that you can accomplish your ambition regardless of the daunting
challenges posing as threats and limitations to the actualization of your
dreams and much desired golden aspirations? How long, how long, I ask how long?
Listen dear friend, it is unwise to blame people when you
fall, for a wise fellow is the one who rise up quickly and move on briskly when
toppled by the marshy and slippery floor of failure. Let’s face it! it’s no
mal-thinking that to try is to triumph. And for every desert, there’s an oasis.
For every desert, there’s a plant called cactus. For every challenge, there’s a
solution. Stop wearing the look of hopelessness friend! There’s a way out of your
repeated failures and the way out is efficient preparation and planning.
Planning establishes co-ordinated efforts. It reduces
uncertainty and wasteful activities. When you plan the execution of a certain
goal, either mentally or in black and white, you minimize the chances of you
failing. To be frank dear friend, without a plan, you are not sure of anything,
not even yourself. You are prone to the vagaries of full-fledge uncertainty and
the attendant thorns of probable failure. When you have a plan, you are as
armed as a warrior on a conquest mission. Tell me with utmost sincerity friend,
can the attack of a wild beast be averted with mere bare hands? Capital eehn,
ooo, NO! A good plan is no different a weapon to trounce the failure that has shamefaced
you and rolled your back on the sandy ground of life over and over. A good plan
calculates the end from the beginning!
Listen, if you are not organized, you’ll agonize!
Hmmn! If you are not organized, you’ll agonize. Let’s get
going!
The old maxim “Proper preparation prevents poor performance”
has a deeper significance than is generally attached to it. Dear friend, show
me an effective debater and I’ll show you a prepared contestant, not only
skillful in the art of oratory but also equipped with the knowledge of the
subject of discourse; an incorruptible lowly income earner who is a proud owner
of a lush duplex residency and I’ll show you a financially disciplined fellow
who pays his monthly investment bill, refusing to live a hand-to-mouth kind of life
even in subtly cash-strapped situations;
a winning troupe of performers and I’ll show you a group diligent in
frequent rehearsals; an intellectual and I’ll show you a continuous learning
mind and lastly, dear friend, show me, I repeat, show me a man who
blames the government for his wretchedly poor condition and I'll show you a man
whose hands are literally lame. Friend, you sure desire to move up the ladder,
work harder!
Hmmn! When you accept a state, it becomes your fate! Start anywhere to
get somewhere!
Now, to an important fellow:
Dear depressed friend, to you I write! Dust up yourself from
the mat of pessimism and ‘things-can’t-get-any-better-if-not-even -worse’. Exorcise
negative thoughts from your mind. Stop being disturbed that things aren’t going
well for you instead sit and think, do some mental calculations and re-planning.
Draw up a chart detailing your course. Ask yourself: ‘what new action do I need
to take to get achieve my course?; how can I successfully navigate and
challenge with defiance, the challenges that has been disgracing me on the path
of my striving to achieve my course?; what new path do I need to discover and
follow to achieve my course? For, if untamable obstacles arise, you can
change the direction to your goal but not the decision to get there. If you
can’t get hold of what you want over time, then your approach is old,
ineffectual and has outlasted its usefulness. Employ a different approach
friend! And ultimately, be time-conscious. Outline the duration it will
take you to achieve your course. For a goal, is dream with a deadline and a dream,
the seedling of reality.
Listen, you are not a failure until you retire from the game
of trying and calculative planning. To try is to triumph! Life is a risk, only
risk-takers emerge goal-getters!
Dear friend, whether unbeknownst or not, it’s time you broke
away from the shackles of the philosophical belief called Determinism: the belief that people are not free to choose what
conditions they like because these things are decided by their surrounding and
other things which they have no control over. It’s a fat lie friend! Even if
you don’t fully have control over everything that happens to you, you have the
utmost control, which is the way you respond to it. ‘what a man conceives, he
sees. What a man sees, he receives’ is inscribed with a permanent board marker
upon the white portals of Eternity. Whatsoever you harbor in the innermost
recesses of your mind will sooner or later shapes itself into reality. As a man
thinketh…..
Hmmn! It’s no deception that perception is possession!
Dear friend having drawn a purpose-driven plan and already acting
out its content, for if you don’t move, nothing will move, take off the bitter
countenance that cloth your face and carpet your face with hysteric smiles of
optimism that things will get better sooner. Play your card well by adequately
equipping yourself intellectually, by the acquisition of peculiar skills. Forget
about the rhetoric that things are hard. Relentless hard work and persistence is
indisputably a virtue. In fact, the way to true riches is the acquisition of
skills. With hard work, hard times are conquered! Success is no doubt
the ability to move from one failure to another without the loss of enthusiasm.
‘The pathway to success always looks barren at its commencement’ wrote a
classic inspirational Writer. Isn’t that paradoxical?
Please, think out the answer dear friend!
As you do so, remember to:
…Kip da Optimism Alive!
ff @Imodoye_1 on Twitter
ff @Imodoye_1 on Twitter
No comments:
Post a Comment