Success is overrated.
?
I know that one is praised for his successes and ridiculed for his failures by the crowd, but who cares what the people think. You don't. Right? Because that's the one of the most important things that you need in your life, personal, professional or otherwise. The moment you stop caring about what others think about you, that's when you learn to let loose all your potential and not hold anything back. That's when you can actually go back, look at your failures and see where you went wrong instead of being ashamed. You can never satisfy the masses. Never, period. Even when you do something ground-breaking, there will always be those people who will stop at anything to bash you and discredit you.
It's more about discovering one's weaknesses than discovering one's strengths. Let's do it right now for a minute. Can you list three of your strengths or the things that you are good at? I bet you can! Now try to list three of your weaknesses. It gets a bit difficult for people including me!
So how do you realize your weaknesses?
You guessed it. The answer lies within the failures you've endured in the past. Let's face it, I am not going to tell you that once you conquer your weaknesses you are headed straight for that realm of success, that's not the truth. There will always be failures. Always. It's the sad reality of our universe. But once you do realize where you went wrong, you become better at not failing. i.e. you take your first giant leap towards the island of your dreams.
You shouldn't be afraid of failures. You needn't be afraid of failures. So what you lost the battle, the war is still going on. The only way to turn the tide in this war is to learn from the mistakes which caused you to lose the battle. A lot of the people that I have come to know fear a loss because of the "shame" it brings with it. People will make fun of you either way, it's their job to laugh and to make fun. Nobody needs that kind of toxicity in their life, it's better to cut them out.
To not fail is the death of innovation, to somewhat extent. A great amount of things can be learned in each failed attempt. Once you step out of that dark room of denial and fear, nothing can stop you. No one is doomed to be a failure. Yes, this is true. If you can fail once, then why can't succeed twice?
As I re-read what I've written, I can't help but feel that I'm demonizing the very idea of "success" which is definitely not my purpose here. I feel very sad when people have to endure failures, but I get even more sad when they lose the courage to continue. Failures are hard, I get it. But when you lose the courage to try again, that's when fall into the dark depths of depression, which is a very, very bad place. Even when you feel everything's lost, most times it's not. Even if it is, another opportunity will raise it's head which is only a matter of time.
Luck and time are the two biggest factors that dictate failure and success. I was hesitant to mention these two in this article, but I decided that it would be dishonest. Even when you do your very best, when you defeat the odds, your fears, and the world, something unexpected happens and your worst nightmare becomes your very reality. In the end, luck still holds quite a few shares in your life, just like time. You just can't eliminate this factor even if you do your best to do everything else perfectly. This scares me to death, to tell you the truth.
I have always done my best to do what I am preaching to you guys here, and I have a good track-record. Not great, but hey it's something. This is something that I think I will have to work on my whole life. Some punches that life throws at you just shake you to your core and before you know it there's a hook coming right for your only good eye that's left in this deathly boxing match against life. I have been in that dark room of denial and fear, and it took me a while to get out. If I got out, then anyone can.
The road to success is a tough one, but the destination of the traveler on this road doesn't matter. The journey itself, and the hurdles encountered do. In each and every person there exists a certain degree of talent. All of the world's piety and goodness exists solely in the effort of honing that talent to it's sharpest edge. The thing is, no one has attained that degree of perfection and honestly, no one ever will. But in the efforts of honing that certain talent, a man becomes a man.
As always, thanks for reading.
