Success & Failure

“Success is Not Final; Failure is Not Fatal: It is the Courage to Continue that Counts”

Different people interpret success in many different ways. For some it may be having a multi-storied house, driving the most expensive car, having a six-figure in your bank or it may be even having a beautiful family. Despite success in that a very opinioned definition, people often struggle in reaching the “success” they give opinions to because all humans are never content when satisfying their wants. But the fact that people miss out on is that without failure there is no success. We are often scared to fail, scared to take a risk, and scared to make a big step but it’s the courage to hold on Despite our fear of failure, it keeps us going. We often look at failure on a negative aspect rather than looking into the silver lining of the dark cloud.

Moving towards the idea we call success, requires a lot of hard work, consistency, discipline, endurance, and most importantly the quality to enjoy the journey despite the pain and hardships that come our way. It is always hard to start, harder to keep moving, and even harder to finish. However, often when things get hard, we tend to quit, we feel it is too much, and we feel tired but we always need to remember that a quitter never wins and a winner never quits. It’s a deliberate choice we need to make to put in the work, and make sacrifices on the things we love and enjoy the most, like our sleep, our eating patterns our idling hours for a temporary time to reach a permanent freedom awaiting the other side of the line. People are often lazy to do so. They feel that running on the infinity loop is okay to do because everyone does it, but if it’s easy, everyone would be doing it and, that’s why the person who wakes up with a strong determination, makes that hard decision, stands above the average than the many others who run on the infinity loop.

Throughout the journey people will try to bring us down and, more than others it is sometimes our mind that brings us down by filling the energy inside of us with negativity and downfall. Rather than admiring the success of another person and speaking about their journey, we must make it a point to create our own success story making it a beautiful one for many to read and to be inspired. After all, there is a difference between a person that works eighteen hours a day and sleeps eighteen hours a day.

“If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.”

— Admiral William H. McCraven

Sometimes it’s the little things that go a long way. We are all born with the potential to change the world but it’s that we haven’t found a purpose or the eagerness to unlock the potential. Sometimes we think it’s about making a big move at once, opening a big company at once, or driving a luxury car at once but good things take time. Even little things like making your bed every morning can add a positive attitude to your day, giving you a sense of pride that you have achieved something small.

“Great successes come through great failures”

If not for Michael Jordan not being chosen to his high school basketball team, if not for Walt Disney being told he “lacked creativity,” if not for Abraham Lincoln being rejected many times to enter politics, if not for Oprah Winfrey being told she was “unfit for TV” they wouldn’t be the people that they are today, whom we admire, love and respect a lot. If it wasn’t for their failures there wouldn’t be such a major success. The most successful stories are the ones that have the most bitter-sweet failures. So, when failure knocks you down make sure to pat yourself on the back and remember you have a purpose, and most importantly remember why you started.

“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”

– Vincent Van Gogh

Written by: Rtr. Gavin Dias

Edited by: Rtr. Loshini Gnanasambanthan