IT TAKES THE SAME ENERGY TO WIN OR TO FAIL: THE DIFFERENCE IS DECISION!
I was born in Nigeria, where the general tendency of living is to envy other countries in the world and blame the government for the failure of the community. I wonder if it ever dawns on people that they usually envy about five to ten countries. Certainly no more than 15 countries pop up as ideal out of 197. The average Nigerian think that the government has failed them woefully and that to survive in Nigeria is to win in other countries. First, and as an aside, the reason an average Nigerian does better in other countries is not because of more opportunities, but because of belief. The belief that they can do it there makes more win outside than inside. Yet, so few are those who make these wins compared with the bulk who migrate. But it is important to identify that in most of these countries escaped into, even the best, they are not entirely free of certain mis-opportunities such as unemployment, exploitation and corruption. The antagonism, at times, received by Nigerians due to their rapid successes in those other countries lead to xenophobia and other such atrocities by indigenes of where they have gone, who indigenes are themselves looking at other lands as where there overflow milk and honey. Something is wrong not with the environment, circumstances and resources we have but with our we explore them.
Really think about the title above: It takes the same energy to win or to fail, the difference is decision. I believe that it takes even more energy to fail, to lose, to resist success than it takes to win. I mean the imagination of fear is usually more consuming spiritually, more draining psychologically and more tormenting physically than that of faith.
No man is entitled with any more or less a body with the same vitals and functioning. When we find men who do not have a body part complete, it is a part not a vital that is absent. By the very same vitals, the weaknesses due to the missing parts are made up for by the strengths in other parts. We all have a body that we live in. Because we dwell in this body, we can be called humans. As Paul puts this equality of fleshly resource: ‘God has made of one blood all nations of men who may dwell on all the face of the earth.’
But Paul even went further. ‘God determined beforehand the times of all men.’ It is equally the same time we all have. No single person, rich or poor, can boast of twice a second than the other person has access. We all have the same 24 hours in a day, either as millionaires or as billionaires, or, in fact, as paupers. Whilst blood and water are a part of the vitals of the body, time is a vital of life.
We have a mind, each one of us. Sanity is the primary requirement to become anything ‘of our own choice’. The insane could be suggested to become something they do not choose by the outside world. But once you have your mind and you are aware of your power to choose the thought you want to think, you are conscious of your sanity. No man has any better nor less a mind. What we have differently is the capacity that we exploit it at. But again, we all have a mind each.
In fact, we face the same opportunities, the same resistance, the same support, the same help, the same challenges and so on. All these things meet us. The only difference for any single person, team or community is the way we meet them. Our attitude. Our attitude can be reduced to a single cause though: decision.
May I tell you that it is as fast as it is slow, great as it is awful, exciting as it is dull, good as it is bad. It is the same energy. The same two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen make water. This same energy called water could be in the deep freezer and be ice. It could be at room temperature merely liquid. You may see it boiling into steam or totally evaporated into the space. It is the same water. The only difference is the level it is operating on.
We shall be fair to say, ‘but the water cannot choose.’ That makes about the point where you differ from all life forms, from all elements of creation. Not even angels where they are have this power which you are so endowed with: the power of choice, the ability to make your decision. This is where you are Human, where you are a person, where you are created in the Image and Likeness of God.
Your power of choice is what Jesus meant in that expression, ‘I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I would you were cold or hot.’ Simply, once you add decision, choice to that energy and limitless resource you have received, you experience the consequence of success or failure which the energy expresses.
People in South Africa and in Nigeria can win or fail alike. Or why would we covet their land but they continue hope we leave them for space? Even in America, the richest land of opportunities, there are many who are living averagely, who are, in Jesus’s example, lukewarm, and thereby spit out of the category of success, yet they are not readily qualified as failures; but they know they are. Each man, staring at himself in the morning mirror, knows.
Using the examples of these countries mustn’t cause you to get political or into restless sentiments that neither add nor take from your objective success. The point remains the point, whatever edges there may be. Let me go a little abstract on this point that it takes the same energy to win as to fail.
What is the speed of light? We know it to be exact at 186,000 mph. But what about the speed of darkness? Well, darkness is no faster than light; it is rather as fast as light. Darkness is simply the absence of light. It is unreal. It takes the same energy to create darkness as to create light. The speed at which light is withdrawn is that at which darkness is enlarged.
You may understand this already. Or you do yourself good to understand it now. The natural principle of life is success. Failure is not negatively draining than it is the absence of success. Failure is an illusion, although reality, a relativity that has no basis except success is removed or taken away. But what is success? Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. Failure goes at the speed of success, either by lacking a realisation that is progressive or the worthy ideal to realised. The former is being stuck, knowing that you can move forward but staying in (reclining from) the same place. The latter is to lack a concrete, certain and sure definition of where to be, the ideal which is being realised. To be a spectator in the game of life or to have no goal post where the scores are made take no less time and energy than to be an athlete actively running, jumping and scoring with all the cheers and praise. We all have got to make that choice where we want to be of either possibility. Either to drain the energy in cheering the players around us, thinking that we cannot be on the same pitch. Or to join in the pitch and play all that we can, that we must and score all that we may — for the joy of running, the story of the tracks and the cheers of the people — before the whistle is blown for each of us. It takes the same playtime, the same energy to succeed as to fail. We are much worse choosing to fail, however, not only because of all the scores and cheers that we get winning but also because all he liveliness, optimisation and delight of using the energy to run up and down, all the little rest to recharge for even greater runs and more skilled plays are lost from us. Not by mere speculation of events but by the bitterness and envy at the understanding that ‘it could be us,’ but it is not anyway.
Decision is the expression of the power of choice to an objective end, an end with an object to it. To close this with a single question you may consider, a question which this writing is meant to answer:
Why does the average person not make a decision to succeed?
This is an extension of the OVERFLOW OF ENGRAFT, which started in October 2020. This extension, 365 Days of ENGRAFT, is one of the personal development release for ENGRAFT SOCIETY, designed to bring every person to the awareness of Success and Happiness in their lives. I invite you to join ENGRAFT SOCIETY today. Get a copy of ENGRAFT for our free invitation to ENGRAFT SOCIETY, become a part of our personal and team development programs and bring yourself to new levels of success beyond your wildest expectations.
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