When people talk about the fear of failure and how they are scared of attempting something because they don’t want to fail, I am usually astounded.
I see no reason why one should fear failure. Failure is very easy to achieve and also very easy to handle and manage.
Abraham Lincoln failed eight times. He was not assassinated throughout this period of failure, instead it was when he became successful that he was killed. In other words, failure did not kill him, success did.
So failure should not be a problem. N.B. I am not saying you should aim to fail and keep failing. No. What I mean (if you haven’t gotten the message already by now) is that when you fail, don’t stress it, it happens, move forward onto the next attempt.
However, one thing that gets me stressed is success. (plot twist of life! 🙌) That is why I believe we should fear success not failure, hence Success is the Enemy.
So I listened to The Album About Nothing by Wale and on the song “The Success” Jerry Seinfeld made a remark at the intro saying:
“The worst thing is when you get comfortable, That’s why success is the enemy”.
That right there summarises everything else in this post.
The thing about success is when you become successful at something, people look at you in a new light, people expect you not to ever fail again, even if you’re someone like me who pays little heed to people’s expectations, as a person you have your own expectations, and you don’t want to fail, you want to continue being successful in all your endeavours from that point onward – This is where the stress sets in.
You try to be perfect at it you try to ensure you don’t go below your self-set-standard, even worse, you try to attain the people-set-standard of you. Where they think you should be and what you should be doing.
To achieve this you put in double work, sacrifice sleep, money, money (time is money ;)), you even put your life on the line. Then finally you beat your own record, then the wild goose chase continues, you double the already doubled work, walk around like a zombie due to lack of sleep… and so on.
With success, you can’t really win. Its either you become successful and get comfortable and fall off, ending up as a one time success (However take note of these wise words of a random Nigerian man: “I get am before no be property.”), or you keep working to maintain the success and meet up with people’s expectations, sacrificing your all…until you get tired one day and fall off or probably die.
If you die, you are safe, if you fall off there are two things involved; start working your way up again or settle as a one time success.
What I’m saying might sound light to you and you may not fully understand till you have attained success at something and you get to feel the pressure first hand. (p.s. I’m not saying I have attained success…and I am also not saying I haven’t :?) .
This pressure can be self inflicted or people inflicted.
Give this a thought, why are famous celebrities so desperate to remain famous?
Why is the guy voted most likely to succeed not usually that successful? (p.s. I was not voted most likely to succeed. Just so you know :'()
The pressure to live up to these is what usually lead to their failure.
It is easier for a man who has never succeeded to fail and bounce back, than for someone who has known success most of his life to accept failure and bounce back; they sometimes end up committing suicides.
Because they have set so high a standard that falling and living below that line is unacceptable and apparently death is better.
Success is the enemy, and what do you do to your enemy, face it, fight it, subdue it and most of all control it.
Control the enemy.
Control success.
Success is the enemy.
Ro.
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Episode 3 of the Speaking My Mind 2.0 [Tales from the city], drops in 2 weeks. Stay tuned.
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