Potentiality Digest: Turn Your Minus to Plus

By Sodeeq Abdulakeem Sulyman

Just last week, I was interacting with one of my friends and it got to a point I submitted that it is good to know what we have; but it is better to redefine what we lack, to learn from our individual losses. At that point, that friend of mine couldn’t hold it anymore and he questioned by saying that “why is life so complicated and complex for one to live?”

I humbly replied him that “Though, life has many principles and those principles are simple. What makes life complex and complicated is one’s inability to interpret and apply the principles of life to solve one’s problems, or in another term, to put the principles of life into use as occasions of one’s life demand. This takes us to realising that to only be focusing on your gain may be a problem to your future successes.

There is an anonymous saying that “One of the enemies of tomorrow’s successes is to be carried away by today’s winnings.” That assertion is absolutely true. I am sure we have all seen many people loosing the track of their life simply because their successes, gifts, gains, talents and victories pushed them towards the wrong directions in their life.

Life is more promising than it always appears to us and it takes it minutes (though based on consistent efforts) to align with us on the course we believed it leads to our path to victory, to triumph. However, you can’t access the promises of life if you don’t appreciate your defeats, rejections or losses. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe says, “Everyone holds his fortune in his own hands, like a sculptor the raw material he will fashion into a figure…The skill to mold the material into what we want must be learned and attentively cultivated.”

There is a value hidden in everything you go through in life and you can’t determine and appreciate that value unless you subject yourself to knowing its meaning and understanding why it is happening to you. C. S. Lewis submitted that “To assess the value of anything, one must first know its purpose.” This is to tell you that every deficiency about you has a purpose and that purpose won’t be uncovered if you are not ready to accept it.

Imagine what would have happened to Helen Keller. Her life would have been one of the most miserable ones if she didn’t appreciated herself for been deaf and dumb. But because she accepted herself, identify her losses, she became one of the greatest human souls. Also take a look at the life of General Harland Sanders. He was a sore loser, tagged “a successful failure,” because his application to work at various places were rejected more than 1,001 times.

Instead of using those rejections as excuses, he reinvented his life. He founded the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), which its merchandise has spread across different countries of the world. How about Abraham Lincoln? A self-trained lawyer who rose the ranks to become arguably one of the best ever presidents of the United States! His oratory prowess was astounding despite the fact that he couldn’t afford to attend colleges/universities.

Their is no one who is not having a form of secretive or internal battle. What distinguishes successful, victorious, great, triumphant individuals and champions of purpose and worthy cause of the human race is their guts to see the best in themselves, regardless of their infirmities, challenges or weaknesses. You can also do it because one of the best God created to rejoice in an imperfect world.

You are created for the best and you deserves to attain it. Don’t stand there waiting for what you want in your life to come; use everything you have known about yourself to create it. Those losses, failures you are afraid to share are what some people are waiting for, to lead you to your path to happiness and fulfilment. Abraham Maslow noted that  “If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.”