Let me engage you in an intellectual meditation, if I may. As we attempt to unravel the mysteries of life, I think it imperative to comprehend, from the outset, that success is never ending and that failure is never final. Our perception and attitude towards life matter the most. It so happens that, contrary to what we may think, life does not yield what we deserve rather what we demand. Once you approach life with the mentality that something good is going to happen to you merely because you deserve it, you might end up disappointed because that’s not the way it works. More often than not, we beat ourselves too much as we expect a lot from life at a go, and when we don’t get it, we easily succumb to the hackneyed philosophy: life is hard.

The greatest achieves can reckon with me that you have to want something so bad to have it. The common mentality, especially amongst young people fresh out of college, is that owing to the previous effort and years of school, you deserve to automatically land a job. This misleads a lot of them as they persistently insist on applying for high ranking corporate jobs amid the growing number of graduates flooding the job market. We put a lot of energy in the wrong places but for all the right reasons hence, misplacing priorities. If only we had spent half as much energy trying to find out what we do best and capitalize on it, the results would be overwhelming. Truth be told, human beings are created in diversity rather than conformity; each of us possesses a talent and there’s that we can do better that anyone else. Once you discover what it is, you then dedicate yourself to utilize and make best of it.

As much as ambition is a prerequisite of success, unchecked it becomes a vice as manifested in great. Human beings are known to become too ambitious for their own sake without due regard to the interests of others. Talent demands discipline, and character without which, no good can possibly come out of it. In one of her journals, Mother Teresa once wrote that we ought not to celebrate talent other than character. She said that many young people celebrate their gifting without knowing that discipline is the most fundamental gift. You can be very talented but your character can’t handle your gifting. Mother Teresa strongly believed that with the right motivation and attitude towards life, success is imminent. She reiterated that discipline is the most crucial.