Persistence

By Success Kunda

Success in life is almost everyone’s wish and indeed like the adage states, “if all wishes were horses every beggar would ride.” It is equally valid that there is no pride in beggary as beggars are not choosers.

In trying to figure out what really leads to poverty, we are compelled to agree no one is by destiny born to be poor as poverty is by nature a drag that pulls people with less wit to its side. A statement like “from rags to riches” only adorns the mercury suit of reality to those who are not faint-hearted. The faint-hearted go the most natural way of sailing towards the wind because it is more comfortable as the tide always helps them.

The most unfortunate thing about them is that for the rest of their lives, they merely survive and usually have no legacy to pass to their offspring. They toil throughout but give up at a point and then start working from scratch again. They claim to be unlucky and finally resign to their fate. The cycle of poverty continues to the next generation and culminates into what can only be described as poverty genealogy.

Nevertheless, there are exceptions, experience has brought to the fore the existence of people who get tired of poverty, fed up of doing the same things but expecting different results and bored of following the current especially after being convinced that it will just take them round in cycles and still drop them in utter poverty.

They have made deliberate efforts to beat the pangs of poverty and get to the top. Such people have used different routes such as academic, talent and even juju. What is very clear and notable common denominator worth mentioning is the attribute of persistence that seems to dominate their faculty, and I have chosen to identify it as the attribute”MAGIC WONDER.”

Persistence denoted by Brian Tracy as, “self-discipline in action.” One’s ability to persist in the face of all setbacks and concurrent failures is the fulcrum of every success in life.

Napoleon Hill once said, “Persistence is to a character of man as carbon is to steel.”  In Bemba one of the seven major languages in Zambia a country within the SADC region there is an adage which state, “umupama pamo utula ing’oma.” Meaning a consistent drum beater has high chances of breaking it. It is also worth noting that failure in all its form is a born child of lack of persistence.

Experience rather than research has shown that the link between self-discipline and self-concurrent esteem is highly relative and the relativity can easily be interpreted by one word, and this is, ‘persistence.’

The evidence is drawn from the fact that each time one disciplines oneself to do what should be done at the right time, whether one feels like doing it or not, one’s self-esteem automatically increases.

Let me end by giving you the names of some of the famous people who succeeded due to their persistence; Oprah, J.K. Rowling, Bill Gates, Henry Ford etc.

We can also make it if we do not give up