Determination: A journey of growth - LOH #263

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It is common knowledge that everyone wants to succeed and no one wants to fail. You know my mom would always say to me that failure has no acquaintances, but you see success?? It has family, friends, and other well-wishers. For me, I have grown to see failure as a learning curve, for without failing or the fear of failing, where will the determination to succeed come from?

You see, back then in the university, I had a very poor reading habit. I do not try to read to understand but rather to cram, and as I advanced further in my academic studies, I didn't feel the need to cultivate a healthy reading habit basically because my poor reading habit served the purpose, which was to pass my exams in flying colors, but then after these series of exams, I possessed barely little knowledge on what had been studied; this would go on to haunt me.

So one time my granduncle came to visit. I had just graduated from uni, and my father had told him I am an economist. At that time we just had a new president who introduced so many policies that had a backlash effect on the economy.

As an economist, it is expected that I should be able to ascertain what went wrong with the policies and proffer solutions. But then when my granduncle, who ran a newspaper company, engaged me by questioning, "As an economist, what advice would you give the government to mitigate the backlash effect of the policies on the economy?"

Interestingly, all I had to say as a response to that question was, "I wasn't taught in school, so I can't answer."

My granduncle was livid. I looked at my dad and saw the embarrassment written all over his face; he couldn't utter a word as his uncle lashed me with demeaning words. At the time, I didn't care, or maybe I just didn't know the gravity of my utterances, but as I grew and started to advance to corporate places, I saw how I couldn't measure up to my colleagues and it started to bother me.

In gatherings where ideas are being shared on economic matters, I would pray not to be called to share an opinion because I wouldn't know what to say. In those moments my granduncle's words would come to taunt me about how I do not deserve to be identified as an economist and how embarrassing it was for my dad during those times. Really I was bothered but felt nothing could be done to elevate my situation.

So later on, a family friend visited one day and suggested that I further my education. Immediately I panicked because I was scared to fail and be tagged a disgrace. But then he was so sure that I would succeed, and he kept urging me on.

Seeing how much he believed in me, my parents bought the idea and decided I would further. Realizing that there was no escape for me, I sat myself down and gave myself a pep talk. I wasn't going to be identified as a failed economist, so I replaced the fear of failing and the feeling of being tagged a failure or inferior with the determination to succeed, and that's how I found myself where I am today.

Now, it is me engaging professors and senior colleagues in different economies all over the world on economic policies. All I can say to this regards is that I am proud of me.

Given my experience, I have since found myself assuming the role of a guardian. I now counsel people in need of some motivation that failure doesn't define them. I mean, it really doesn't matter how much we fail or how many times we fall. The question is, do you get up? Or do you just lie there feeling sorry for yourself? Notably whatever option we go with would determine our outcome in life.

Another thing that became certain for me is that on this journey of success, nobody is going to help you succeed until they've seen tangible effort; reason being, it is effort that brings results and in the end, our efforts will be crowned as just one act of success would wipe away years and a series of failure.

Do note that while success takes away the rigors of failure, it should never eliminate the lessons.