Another one on Success

Friday, July 1 in the Year of Our LORD, 2016.

This week happens to be one of celebration for yours truly and 60 or so of his friends who have just completed their 6 year march through the tunnel called medical school. Pretty much of an achievement, right? That’s why I just had to bring it out unnecessarily. Ndi ina yake.

I happened to have run out of ideas as to what to write tonight, so I consulted a sister of mine who told me I should write something about. Without going into details about the conversation we had, she suggested that I write about success myself. That sort of put me on the spot, because based on some of the definitions of success, I do not qualify to be called a successful human. Personally, I have issues preaching things that I am not so this was a bit hard.

But…

I got to remember yet another definition of success and it reminded me that I do not have to be there for me to start preaching about it, so here we are. 

Success.

I probably shared a similar sort of definition of success in one of my previous posts; the one that says that success is the continual achievement of one’s personal goals and aspirations (or something like that). Two critical things there. The first one is that of setting goals, and the second is that of continual attainment of the goals.

The typical Richie Online follower is probably fed up with the setting goals jazz because I have been humming the tune for a long time. The main point is that it success follows preset goals, otherwise it is just mere luck (in my view, eti?) Nkhani yaing’ono iyi.

The main issue that I would like to bring to light is the fact that the attainment of personal or collective goals has to be continual for it to be called success. This is why a good car or a house shouldn’t symbolize (or better still be considered as) success, although they might be connected to that.

In the event that someone sets some goals, there have to be short term goals which are leading to a big and overall long term goal. This means that success entails the continual achievement of the small goals on the way to the main goal. Again, at the end of the road if we are to truly call something a success, the long term goal has to be achieved and it needs to have a sustained impact which is not limited to oneself. Those are ideals.

There is a reason why the understanding of these facts becomes important, and it has everything to do with the Malawian setting in which we were raised (Timawerenga Amalawi tokhatokha izi, by the way. In case some of you are worried about the “Malawian” words). Being in such a resource limited country (running away from the word “poor”), we consider the things others consider basics as symbols of success. If you were to ask Kamuzu Banda, he would tell you that every person should at least have a house, but if you think of it, nowadays having a house is a symbol of success among us, which is not entirely true (I am not saying musamange nyumba yakavuta, by the way). The point is just that a decent living, nice accommodation and a nice means of travelling around are (supposed to be) basics and they should register as achievements not success itself. The word success should be left for things that leave a lasting mark on a couple of lives and if possible this poverty stricken nation. Osamaphweketsa dhilu.

A wise person once pointed out that the problem with most people’s goals is not that they are too huge and they cannot achieve them; but rather that they are too small and they do actually achieve them. True, if you think of it. Most of us become complacent with achievements and settle in comfort zones, ending up complaining when we cannot adapt to the ever-changing world around us. This is something to think about for you.

Main point of all this?

Achievement is the way to but should not be mistaken for success. The word success should be reserved for things that are worth the word, not some degree. Or Mazda Demio (I hope no one drives that in my readership). Or some crib.

Mwamvatu….