SUCESS WITHOUT SOME JOURNEY DOESN’T LAST
Adapted from the daily nation: DN2 Feb 2013
How do you explain a person who had 10 million dollars nine years ago and is today totally broke and lives on support to be able to feed her family? Strange, isn’t it? Well, that is the story of Sharon Tirabassi, a Canadian woman. There are many more like her, who get their money from winning the lottery.
Their disposition is similar to what drives the roadside thief, the political thief, and the corporate thief, and indeed, the very thing that affect many other people – not having been prepared for success. When it comes, they cannot keep it.
There is value in going through processes that prepare one for success. Many people want to bypass those processes. They want to experience comfort, but they are not ready to embark on the journey that will lead them there. They are looking for shortcuts.
The truth of life, however, is that the journey qualifies the experience.
The journey is why we can sustain the experience. If the experience comes as an accident or as a result of taking a short cut, it cannot be sustained. Whatever you compromise to get, you will ultimately lose.
Many successful parents, in an attempt to give their children the best, say that they don’t want their children to go through what they went through. They try to shield them.
While this is understandable, we must remember that as a parent, you are what you are because of what you went though.
I have observed that many of the shielded children end up being unable to handle the real world when they grow up and have to do things on their own.
I am what I am today because of the mistakes I have made, because of the many failed attempts to execute ideas, because of the big losses I have made, because of the pain I have experienced, name it.
In other words, I am a product of my journey, not of my location. My journey prepared me for my present location.
When you bypass the journey, you short-circuit your ability to handle the destination.
If you see a young butterfly struggling to come out of its pupa and you help it out, you will have robbed it of its ability to fly.
Do you know why?
It’s because it is the stretching and the struggling – the process of coming out of the pupa – that strengthens its wings to enable it to fly.
Every success, therefore, must come with a process.
Normal school rewards your success with certificates. The school of life rewards you with experiences. It rewards you with wisdom.
