SUCCESSFUL FAILURES

It has been five months after my arrival in this simple and hospitable village for my National Youth Service; my life circle in the village was indeed simple and predictable as I only had few places to go for an entire day. Hence, aside from being in the school and the Corpers’ lodge, I should be in the pharmacy were I charge my phones and get manageable network coverage to make my time to time calls or the viewing centre. One blessed evening as I was seating at the front of the pharmacy which happens to be where I spent most of my evenings and free times, a sales boy came out dancing a particular dance step that I am used to, this is what he said to me: “This is how I will be dancing when you finish your service and when you are gone”

Well, this piece is not to bore you with the story of my adventurous youth service year, but the statement made by the sales boy that faithful evening was congruent to a burden I was musing in my heart, which had to do with successful people raising successors for the next generation. Though it was a mere dance step, it dawn on me heavily that most people don’t give much thought to the fact that their words, actions and inactions definitely leave mark on the sand of time. Thus, after spending that whole evening thinking, two words summarized my though for that evening; “Successful Failures”.

With greatness as its closest kin, success is one word that most people want to associate with, but very few people are ready to pay the price, this is because every success comes with a corresponding cost. If you are to define success, what will be your own definition? Simply put therefore, success has to do with an achievement of ones goals, objectives, or plans in life. I see success as the concrete and tangible fruition of one’s abstract life’s goals and objectives; in a broader sense – mission and vision. Thus, people often quantify and qualify success in terms of  how much one has acquired, the position one has attend and the accumulative assets one has over the years accrued. I totally align my sentiment with these descriptions of success, but the summary of my thought that evening was still an oxymoron – successful failures.

Successful failure presupposes that there is successful success; an attempt to delve into the former will give us the true picture of the later (Successful Success). After a keen observation and analysis, I saw a grievous omission in the life of most of the people we see as successful in our generation. True, when it comes to who they are, what they have and who they know, they are repertoire of success stories, but when it comes to who they have helped, and mentored to take over from them when they are no more, they are successful failures. This proves true the popular saying that “a successful person without a successful successor is a successful failure”.

Taking a cursory look at our society, one will agree that yes, many people are pursuing success, only to be successful failures. A father could be seen as a great and successful father, rich and influential, but when it comes to ensuring that his children take over form his commendable legacy, he is just but a successful failure. In our local and advance communities, it is obvious that our leaders are so traditional and obsessed with power that the issue of raising successors is not of importance to them; our religious bodies are no exception. Everyone clamours for leadership, greatness and success, but little or no thought is given to who is next. More glaring and disturbing is our national and political leaders who are so immediate, short sighted and careless about tomorrow, no wonder they kept telling the youths they are the leaders of tomorrow, tomorrow that never came.

There are many variables that bring about a success that is a failure. Topping the list is: greed, selfishness, selfish ambition, the “I, me and myself syndrome” and other human negative inclinations. People that their time and life will not be seen as successful failure, men and women that their success story will resonate in eternity are those who though are successful but daily see themselves as failures unless they deposit what they have into others, carry others along and share with them the secret recipes of their success. Such men care less about leadership but are consumed with the passion of raising successors, they are men that have come to internalize the true meaning of success and carry within them the seed of success and cannot afford to die with it without sowing same in the life of others.

What is this piece trying to share with you in essence? It was the Holy writ that said “whatever your hand find doing, do it well”, I humbly add that whatever your hand find doing, do it  well, be a success story at it and deposit same into a life that will represent and succeed you when you are gone. Are you a successful father or mother? Don’t be a successful failure but see to it that you raise and train your children to be twice successful as you are. Are you a business guru who the society call successful?  See to it that others succeed you with greater measure of success. Are you a leader? Be a success by first being good through knowing God, then deposit same seed into others to take over from you. The analogy can go on and on.

A wise man once told me: “If you have only one rich, educated and highly placed person in your family, you are not successful. But if that one person learns a helping hand to other members of his family to be successful, that is true success”. This is true because if one person succeeds, it is no success, but if all succeeds at one thing or the other, that is true success.  Joel Osteen captured this beautifully when he said: “True success is when you reach back and bring somebody along with you”.  This should henceforth be your definition of success less you become another successful failure.

Lack of successful successors had been the bane of most families, communities, organizations and nations. We cannot afford to continue in this vicious circle of being successful failures, we are the change, and we are the answers and solution to the questions and equations life haul at us every day. Jesus Christ is the most successful success story that ever toured the face of the earth, what formed the core of his mission was not power, attracting followership and all sort of things we associate with success, but his utmost passion was raising successors, moulding his disciples with enduring uncommon patience, depositing in them what will qualify them to be his successors. For you and me to be true success stories, in our little, different unique yet equally important ways, we must start depositing into the life of others what we are successful at so that they can take over from us, knowing fully well that we are all time bound. Any attempt to do otherwise will make us successful failures. Better not to yearn for success at all than to pursue success and be a successful failure.

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