Short-Circuiting Success: A Tempting Fantasy

By Teboho Polanka

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Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash
Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

I have often watched athletics, and they did a lot of incredible things. I mean have you watched gymnasts? Their bodies doing things that look almost humanely impossible. And by a mere looking, it is evident what they eat, read and spent most of their free time doing.

Most of these people are consumed and controlled by their passions. They may sometimes go without sleep for three consecutive days, in order to become the best in their field. They are careful with their diet. Their lives are ordered and without any chances of compromise.

Take for instance Tiger Woods; do you think he woke up one day the best golfer? Even after he became one of the world’s best golfer he would still go through the drills. He would even lift weights, which may be strange for a golfer. Yet all these equaled the level of success he aspired to have.

What then should we make of this? Success isn’t without cost. Some level of success is way too costly.

As one man once said, “Every monkey must sweat in this life, for survival.”

Look at animals, fierce droughts will by no means make vegetarians of carnivores. As one African proverb goes, “In Africa every morning an antelope wakes up knowing that it must outrun the fastest lion for its survival, while every morning a lion wakes up knowing that it must outrun the slowest antelope for it to survive.’’

All animals understand that nothing comes without concerted effort on their part. To eat, you must think and act. They know that without being strategic about life you’ll come to a painful end of your existence. There’s no going against this order of life. Like it or not, success will cost us.

Yet for some unknown reasons, we have individuals who want to somehow go for short-cuts to success. They know that there are no jobs, so they resort to stealing or gambling. Why? Because they want to succeed with as little effort as they possibly can.

But guess what, all reality is against this mindset. There’s no short-circuiting success. We all must go through all the hoops in order to be reasonably wealthy and at peace. No one became a successful business man or woman by luck. Go through all the necessary steps and see your success being established.

The height of the building is determined by the depth of its foundation. So slowly begin to think and plan and later success will be inevitable.

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Teboho Polanka
Teboho is a Social Worker, Writer and Inspirational Speaker. He is in pursuit of MSc. in Managerial Psychology. Graduates are able to apply psychological principles and methods to tackle challenges in the work environment and provide effective practical solutions. Acting as industrial-organizational psychologists.