Sat, 06 May 2017 15:18:13 +0000
Perseverance and reaching for greatness
I know many young people in Zambia love to listen to Hip hop music. Many young men particularly like RAP (Rhythm and Poetry). There is a rap group called the Big Tymers that did a song entitled Everything.
There’s a particular line that caught my attention at the start of one of the verses which goes as follows: ‘Six years ago, a friend of mine said it’s goin rain before the sun shine, some gonna leave, some gonna follow; and some gonna spit, some gonna swallow.’
You’ll have to excuse my spelling dear reader but I was simply trying to spell the words in accordance with the way our black American brothers sometimes speak both in music and conversation.
This notwithstanding, I’d like you to reflect on the words. A journey began six years ago when somebody decided to go on a voyage to improve his life.
He was told by his friend that on such a journey, not everyone will share in the vision and stick around. Not everyone will be able to deal with the frustration associated with pursuing a big dream. Some swallow the bitter pill and stick around while others will spit it out and throw in the towel.
How many of us out there have been on a journey trying to pursue big dreams? How many of us are currently on a journey through life trying to pursue big things? Those that have travelled this journey and indeed those that are on this journey and have been so for a few years will testify to you that so many people run out of steam along the way. People truly get fatigued when they are not seeing results or the fruits of their efforts.
Of course we all know that if you want to reach for greatness, you need to persevere, but any reasonable adult will tell you that a declaration to persevere in the midst of challenges is something easier said than done. A story is told about a man that was digging for oil. He drilled for years and found nothing despite the fact that his research showed that there were oil deposits to be found.
He eventually threw in the towel and gave up the rights to drill. The next person that obtained those rights simply drilled a few meters and he struck oil. Needless to say the latter became instantly rich while the former missed out.
This sometimes is the reality of how life works. It may seem like a serious injustice but the moral of the story is that perseverance is key if you want to reach for greatness successfully. I will be the first to admit that so many thoughts can go through your head when things are not moving. You will wonder at what point should you say enough is enough, and call it quits on a particular dream?
After all, it may well be that the specific path you are on is not your calling. In life, there is such a thing as cutting your losses, yet at a same time, there is such a thing as perseverance yielding a good return. So where do you draw the line? My answer: the truth is I do not know. What I do know however is that deep reflection including talking to God will help find the answer. In addition to that, if you truly want something, perseverance will get it for you. It may not be at that particular time, but it will surely come your way. One such example I can give is building a business.
If you have aspirations of building a business, you may be interested in knowing a few statistics. For instance, nine out of ten start-up businesses fail. Although this is a statistic written by American scholars, it may well be applicable even here.
I say so because the principles in business are largely universal. So what this statistic tells us is that when you start a business, you must be psychologically prepared to fail at least nine times before you succeed.
Of course this may not be the case in your real life practical case; it may be that you fail twice or thrice before you eventually succeed, but make no mistake about it, failure is the likelihood on first attempt.
So if you are the sort of person that gives up easily, then surely business is not the area for you. Perhaps you should target to get a job in an established entity so that you are winning every month end.
Of course your winnings will never be comparable to a true businessman’s when he wins, but that is the price of security. Everything has its price.
The price for security is that you will never live a luxurious life. If ever you do such, it will be known to all that have a brain that you are a thief for there is no job in Zambia that pays enough for you to have a luxurious life.
Life as I like to say is a journey. And I would urge many young people out there to explore different things. Don’t live your life the conventional way.
I for one can tell you that I have not live my three decades of life by the typical Zambian book. I have had my fair share of successes and my fair share of failures.
I have had my moments of joy and my moments of sadness. I have been on the rise before in business to the point where I felt I’m joining the elite but it all came crashing down.
I am still not giving up because perseverance will see me through. These are the values that I espouse, and I have looked around and found that they are just not common in this country. Almost every young person is dead boring with their desperate search for a job and no ounce of ambition to try other things out. Give that dare to be great aspect of life a shot. You will end up somewhere.
So my dear brothers and sisters out there, perseverance is a trait that you are going to need if you are to succeed in your aspirations. And you must remember that God is everything, and with him you can be anything. We are only limited in possibilities by our minds.
I always, and I will never stop telling Zambians through this column to think big, to know that we are capable of producing the next global titans industry, governance and any other sphere. This stupid mentality of Zambians thinking they are too big by having some job which they think pays them a big salary – whatever their idea of a big salary is has got to stop.
Let us realise what big is and reach for greatness. Know the reality of what big is, set the goal to get big and persevere through the journey.
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