How great the feeling of success is. It is what people crave ever since their childhood at the games, school and then at their careers. However, Fear of failure also dwells in man’s soul and it turns to his main enemy if he let it dominate over his heart. The writer and author, Emerson, said, “No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself”. A wise man said, “In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure”. Fear will paralyze you and make a gap between you and your aspirations; this is truly what is failure is. Of that they say, “We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. It is a powerful obstacle to growth. It assures the progressive narrowing of the personality and prevents exploration and experimentation. There is no learning without some difficulty and fumbling. If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure all your life.” Thus my dear reader, keep in mind your inner fear of failure is the main obstacle to success; as god granted us many talents that we haven’t fully discovered yet. However, working honestly would help you to discover them and achieve success. All religions agreed on the idea of working hard and God’s reward of it , “The God of heaven Himself will prosper us; therefore we His servants will arise and build” and in Surat Al-Kahf “Indeed, those who have believed and done righteous deeds – indeed, We will not allow to be lost the reward of any who did well in deeds.”. Be sure that only will you fail, if you stop trying. Let your motto be, try and fail then, try and succeed. Some people don’t have the word “failure” in their glossary. One of them is the outstandingly genius inventor” Thomas Edison”. Many a time did he say that there is nothing called failure however there are ways that don’t lead you to your goal. Failure for successful people is not but a step to a better stage.
Several people managed to turn their hard time to a success. For instance, “Steve Jobs” who introduce Apple Macintosh. He was forced out of Apple, yet he did not give up. He produced many computer-animated films like “Toy Story”, “Finding Nemo” and “Monsters, inc”.
Winston Churchill is another role model; he never even made it into the upper school, failed all the elections he ran; yet, at the age of 62, he became the prime minister of the United Kingdom. He was considered one of the smartest political leaders in the 20th century. He brought victory to his country at the World War II.
Richard Nixon is the 37th President of the United States from 1969 until 1974.He lost a race for Governor of California in 1960; however, he did not surrender till he became the US president. One of his wonderful sayings is “Defeat doesn’t finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he’s defeated. He’s finished when he quits.”
We all know how Henry Ford faced a lot of obstacles till he managed to turn his failure into success.
And there are many and many examples that proved that failure is not but a step to success. Success has many factors…to be continued….
General Bishop
Head of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center
