When You Don't Get What You Want

LIFE is not a bed of roses. The sentence 'and they live happily ever after' probably exists only in fairly tales. For every success story that we read or heard about, there are countless failures that we don't. We live in a society that glorifies winners and all the positive rewards that come with it. 

What about those who didn't make it? We don't really heard very much about them, right? Failing is a lonely affair. After all, who wants to be associated with losers? Society's obsession with success has created a divide between the successful overachievers and the perennial losers. 

Since young we were taught to work hard in order to be successful. Students who were academically weak were usually labelled with all sorts of tags such as dumb, stupid, lazy, slow, impossible, etc.

I too, had been given a label when I was still in primary one. I went to a Chinese school and since I didn't speak any Chinese Language back then, naturally I could't understand my teacher's instructions. So, out of frustration, she said "Why are you so stupid poor student?" in Hakka to me. 

And since I couldn't understand a word in Hakka either, I just nodded my head at her like a little puppy, desperate to make his owner happy. It was only later that I realised what my teacher's words meant. But I'm glad that my young mind didn't understand her back then. I guess that was a classic case where ignorance turned out to be a blessing. 

Well, to every person reading this who has ever failed before in life, I would like to share with you a quote. "Success is never final. Failure is never fatal." Failure is only fatal when we allow it to kill our spirits. Have you ever come across someone who has given up on himself and others after he encounters a failure in life? he becomes cynical and looks at life through the lens of contempt and anger. Like a person lost in the sea, he is quick to look for life support such as a floating log to cling on to. In this case, it is someone of something to blame. 

Blaming is like drugs. It is addictive. once someone starts the blame game, it is very difficult to stop. This is because blaming is so much easier compared to taking action. 

Some people felt that his/her father/mother was the reason for his/her lack of success in life due to his/her past. When things got hard, you started looking for something to blame. Like a Big shadow. Let me tell you something you already know. The worlds ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. 

You've gotta hit as hard as life. It isn't about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much can you take and keep moving forward? That's how winning is done. 

If you know what you're worth, go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits. And not pointing fingers saying you aren't where you wanna be because of him or her or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that. 

We have to get over the fear of failure if we are ever to taste the fruits of success. For me in order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. It takes a lot of inner strength to stand up in the face of failure and defeat and fight your way to success. But it can be done. In fact we each owe it to ourselves to do it for no one is responsible for our lives and success apart from ourselves. 

Blamers think their lives will improve once their circumstance change. They blame others for their lack of success and happiness in life. But the sad truth is nothing will change unless the blamer first changes his ways. Rather than blame circumstances that are beyond his control, he should take responsibility and full accountability for all that he has or doesn't have in life. 

When we take personal responsibility and accountability, we take charge of our life. When we play the blame game, we delegate that duty to whomever or whatever it is that we are blaming. And as stated earlier, no one else is more responsible for our success and happiness in life than us. 

A few years age when I was going through a rough patch in my life, I started playing the blame game. I blamed the God, my parents, and others. Actually, I was feeling frustrated about being stuck in a rut. But did all the blaming makes me feel any better? Of course not. In fact, the more I thought about the situation, the more I laid blame on others, the worse I felt. I was quickly descending into a negative downward spiral. 

However, one day something I heard from a CD changed me. I would like to share it here with you. Mr. Jacky Chen, a Taiwanese success  said, "When I don't get what I want in life, that's simply because I am going to get something even better."

I meditated upon those words day and night. The more I thought about it the more positive I felt about myself because I realized that the rough patch I was going through was only temporal. Instead of blaming others or even myself, I started to be hopeful about the bright future that was awaiting me. All that remained for me to do was to concentrate on living my life to the best I could one day at a time. 

Please don't get me wrong. I still had to work hard to turn my life around. After all, this is not a magic spell. However, when I discarded the habit of blaming others for the condition of my life that I was in, the decision look away all the burden from my shoulders. It freed me up to pursue my happiness in life. 

Everyone encounters failure in one way or another. The key is what you do with it. Will you allow it to hold you back or will you turn it into your launch pad. Only you can make that decision. I will leave you with a quote, "Whatever happens, take responsibility."