B A Ochia

As ageing is a life-long process, all of us should be aware of it, no matter our chronological ages. Our lifestyles, our daily thoughts and the feeling that goes with our personal achievement and self satisfaction, all tend to influence the way we age.

There is one thing that each and every one of us wants – success. Each person wants to be a winner. But the road to success or winning is often littered with failures. However, a person who actually fails is the one who refuses to get up again after falling down.

Human history is full of instances where men and women had achieved great successes only after a succession of spectacular failures. Walt Disney was turned down by bank after bank when he applied for a loan to establish his recreational park. Thomas Addison, that great inventor, failed thousands of times in his experiments on the incandescent electric bulb. Sylvester Stallone produced many feature films which flopped at the box office before he achieved fame with the successful Rambo series.

There is one thing common with high-achievers. It is their stubborn persistence which enables them to literally snatch victory from the jaws of failure.

Failure, though, is no success; it only shows us a way of not doing a particular thing. It does not tell us to stop trying, or that what we are trying to accomplish is impossible. It merely indicates that we should look at other possible ways of trying to achieve our declared objectives.

Nothing is impossible; as a sage once said, “The word ‘impossible’ should be confined to the dictionary of fools”.

Achievement of personal success helps us to raise our level of self perception, self confidence and self liking. These attributes have some influence on the way we age. They enable us to look and feel good and active, no matter our calendar age.

So, failure is not the end in itself; it is merely a prod to try harder for success.