Failure: Paramount to success
HOW could failure be of paramount importance toward success? The reality is that people could be aware of themselves between success and failure. The two are in the opposite ends. Failure is the condition or fact of not achieving the desired end or ends. Success is the achievement of something that is planned, desired or attempted. The difference between the two: “Failure is when a person does not reach his qualification; while success is a blackand-white chance to achieve vigorously.”
In my college days, we learned in out ethics class that “no one could determine success if he could not experience failure or vice versa.” Fear occurs regardless of time, situation and condition. So to say that cowardice would dominate once the individual turns fearful and thereby losing focus in life and one gets lost along the way to his goal. An individual can encounter failure once he is not focused, not determined, not diligent, and not confident to do things to achieve. Other individuals escape from stressful moments and experiences by not getting involved in any difficult task. They are just contented with small responsibilities and their routine. Success can begin with failure, believing that it is the benchmark to climb up to a certain pedestal in its apex.
Sometimes, others could not also deviate from the reality of acceptance as time could not be his. Chances will knock on one’s door and the individual could feel things clearly: that he will be the winner, the people’s choice, or will be qualified and be the top person to be the highest and the grand slam winner. When a person would get wrong and could commit mistakes, he could realize that he must be humble, sincere, and diligent enough in any endeavor. The ability to understand people’s weaknesses could be of great help in handling failure before success. This is called “emotional intelligence.” Absolutely, people around could contribute also to both aspects of failure and success. The challenge is to ignore negativity but to move on to positivity.
The fight in overcoming failure cannot be done overnight, but years of various experiences, for instance: tenacity vs. fear; frugality vs. complication; justice vs. gratitude; diligence vs. popularity; humility vs. arrogance; and perseverance vs. apathy.
Self-consideration is a factor of individual’s greatness by not listening to other people’s opinion. A person might be having his past experience of not being listened to, not being attended and not being attributed or understood. This could hinder the way to success as it could be a burden to reach the purpose. Therefore, this is a failure. How does a person realize this? “There is no success to like failure?” It is in realization, evaluation or assessment from the previous encounters that a person must be firm in every move, legally-oriented and spiritually engrossed. According to Debasish Mridha, “The greatest obstacle to success is the fear of failure.” Well, stages of challenges must be overcome accordingly once the person starts to face them, one at a time, the tip is not to surrender, but instead to proceed to the next level of challenge. This is to burn the fear of failure through a fire of desire so that the door of success will be opened and that it flows significantly. - Zenaida Aberion Remedio
IN A Global Campaign for Action against Poverty in 2005, the late South African president Nelson Mandela addressed the international community in London Trafalgar Square to make poverty history.
In his call for action in that platform, he noted that there is no true freedom while poverty persists. He further highlighted that “millions of people in the world’s poorest countries remain imprisoned, enslaved, and in chains. They are trapped in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free.”
Since then until today, while global and local initiatives were undertaken to address poverty, the situation described by Mandela remains the same – millions of people are still trapped in the prison of poverty. In the Philippines alone, the World Poverty Clock estimates that 5.3 percent (or 5.6 million) of the Philippines’ total population live in extreme poverty.
While poverty persists, the evils of graft and corruption remain rampant and those in the prison cells of poverty are the ones hit the hardest.
They are the ones experiencing the consequences of substandard quality of basic services and insufficient services to meet the basic needs of the people in the community. Others are even deprived of access to such services. In the latest release of 2018 Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International, which measures the perceived level of public sector corruption, the Philippines slightly improved in its score and ranking from 111th among 180 countries in 2017 to 99th in 2018. Yet, there is a lot more to be done to curb this endemic menace of the country, which affects generations upon generations including the generations yet unborn.
More than political will, addressing graft and corruption and other illnesses of this nation requires the involvement of people who are truly free from the inside and out – free from any forms of restraint, clutches of the enemy, or any forms of bondages of greed, pride, hatred, apathy, idolatry and anything that feeds on the selfish interest nature of a person. Otherwise, great plans of good leaders will be sabotaged along the way by men and women whose innermost being silently cry out for more selfish gains.
As we contemplate on the value of freedom this week, let us ask ourselves how free are we and how ready are we to be instruments for others to be set free. In the context of public service, how free are we to serve with excellence, with greater sense of transparency and accountability to the public?
How free are we to uphold the Code of Conduct and ethical standards in our workplace? How free are we to become men and women of exceptional character whose integrity is unquestionable and whose motivation and commitment to stand for righteousness and justice in public service is unshakabl e?
Real freedom will find a place in the hearts of men and women who are free from the grip of selfish interest nature. They are the ones who will seek genuine transformation within to be an instrument for the transformation of others and even the organization and the society.