LIFE IS A CHALLENGE, ACCEPT IT.

  LIFE IS A CHALLENGE, ACCEPT IT.

I write this piece at a time that the world is facing economic difficulties, serious illnesses, family problems, and political unrest plague people on a daily basis.

How a person faces each challenge that comes their way however, says much about their character, who they are on the inside.

One thing is certain, we have to accept and deal with challenges in life, or else these challenges won’t go away.

A sage once said that a turtle only makes progress when he sticks his neck out. That’s courage.

The turtle also doesn’t move when he goes into his shell. So the only way for the turtle to make progress in his habitat is to come out of his shell (i.e. accept the challenges around his habitat) and move on to safety or to a new habitat.

Needless to say that the human race is like that of the turtle and I wish to say that change only comes, when you come out of your shell and accept the challenge that life throws at you.

Some people draw strength and inspiration from the experiences of others.

Therefore I wish to share some experience that will help you accept the challenges of life and inspire you to accept your challenge and grow in strength and character.

So let me tell you about a young man who came one mark short of passing his professional examination in 2004. He had to wait for one year to retry the exams in 2005.

The Question: Did he go into his shell and refuse to write the exam again?

Answer: Not at all. He went back to write the exam in 2005 and got near perfect scores. 

Five years after passing the exam, he became the youngest professional in that field one of the top 1% of the field in the world.

When asked what gave him the zeal to continue after he failed. He said his motivation came from the movie “Rocky Balboa”

He said I love the scene where Sylvester Stallone said: “It doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down, what matters is how many times you are willing to stand up and keep fighting, no matter how beat up you are.

In his opinion, he believes that people can and should rise up to whatever challenge that life throws at them, because challenges only make you better and prepare you for the success that life has to offer.

Let me tell you about Elon Musk, a man who eats failure for breakfast, gets challenged at lunch time and gets successful at dinner time.

Let me list the failures that he has faced.

1.       Elon started a company and the board of directors refused to let him become the CEO. Their reason was: he lacked operational experience and was inexperienced.

2.       His first born child Nevada died when he was 10 weeks old of the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. This affected his life.

3.       SpaceX, a company that he started had money for three launches, and all three launches failed. This means he lost all the money that he put into his company.

4.       His launch of Tesla Roadster, an all-electric sports car didn’t debut until after 4 years.

The Question: Did he go into his shell and refuse to try again?

Not at All, Elon Musk tried again, he borrowed money from some friends and tried a fourth launch which succeeded and got funding to the tune of 6 billion dollars from NASA.

He also proved pundits wrong by launching the Tesla Roadster which has sold over thousands of unit without any form of marketing.

I can bet that if Elon was asked if you can be born with the gift of accepting challenges. His response would be: “You cannot be born with this quality neither can you be taught, it has to be experienced every single time.

The bigger problems you solve in life, the better your life will be.”

So I urge you today accept that life is a challenge, so come out of your shell and accept it.