I was having this talk with a friend in that place where the unexpected seems to be happening almost by the day and all the world seems to be mesmerized by the spectacle. It’s a spectacle, isn’t it? I mean if you were told such things were happening in other parts of the world maybe the whole thing wouldn’t have sounded as nothing but a roll call breaking news one after another. No wonder we’ve friends and relatives worried about their families’ future. For once they seem to be in some bubble where you could predict anything but what would happen tomorrow.
“I hope the chainsaw hasn’t touched you so far!” I try to be humorous when there is nothing humorous about the whole thing. Nervous laughter.
“Not yet; I just hope it never will.” “Not yet” means that my friend believes that he and his family weren’t yet out of the woods. In fact looking at things from thousands of kilometers away it seems no one seem to be out of the woods yet!
I hope the winds change directions before they reach my friend’s home. Because if they do, it’d be sad, very sad. You know this friend of mine is one of those who have rode and floated across multiple waves and finally managing to ensure comfortable lives for their families. But the passage to a comfortable life for my friend’s family hasn’t been easy. Not at all! He failed over and again. Many times his failures appeared so complete his was supposed to be almost case. But as he was back here before DV took him across the oceans this guy was one hell of a determined fellow. Every time he fails and hits the ground with every square inch of his anatomy he struggles up once again, beats the dust and give whatever venture he was in another try. Finally his persistence paid off.
A very strong side of him is that never, I mean never, does he dwell on the past. As the past is usually loaded with package that should have been thrown far and out into nothingness tuning the clock backwards and wrecking our minds with long gone events and nonevents would be the perfect way to fail and fail again.
This friend of mine never allowed himself to be ensnared in such a damaging web. But of course now he and all of them out there are in different era, amidst different vibe and more than anything, in times which are uncertain in many ways.
“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space;” so goes a quote.
“Close the door on the past.” isn’t that what too many of us have failed to master! Isn’t failing to close the door on the past one glaring reason behind most of our present problems, individual or otherwise!
I know a woman who for years tried to go into profitable business and failed over and again. It would be safe to say that if many found ourselves where she did they would probably have thrown the towel into the ring early, probably after the second or third try. Not her. She persisted despite all the problems, problems which almost tore her family apart, and finally became a very successful business person; that’s until she relocated to the States. I’m not sure how she fares over there, but given her resilience to see her dreams through she must be doing quite well.
“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” How about that!
More than a decade back this gentleman who was edging towards four decades of existence decides it was high time he tied the knot. There was this lady a neighboring office on whom he set eyes. He tries everything he could do in, of course, a reserved and gentlemanly way to win her over. The only thing is that she wasn’t convinced enough to be tempted with that proverbial “How about you and me getting together for a cup of coffee?” She was one hell of a principled woman and she just refused his advances outright. In fact her measured greetings to him didn’t boost his confidence of a possible conquest somewhere down the line. Of course there was also the tense competition not hidden from anyone, curious or otherwise. That he wasn’t the only one hovering over the Cleopatra everyone was trying to bring into their private worlds. Not that she was any much younger than him but for some reason she made sure any of her prospective suitors didn’t come too close to her.
But our not comfortable being on the losing side was even more intrigued by her steadfast position and this made him even more determined to go the distance all the way to anywhere he could say “Hip, hip hooray!” If you have any reservation as persistence would eventually pay dividends this is the fellow you need to hear about. About three years later all her defenses came crumbling down. The last we heard of them they were a respected and successful couple with equally admirable children within the society they live in.
“Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so ‘safe,’ and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure.”
Yes, failure doesn’t mean the end of the rope.
BY EPHREM ENDALE
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 23 MARCH 2025
