I purposely misspelled the word
obstacles. But you still read it correctly. That’s how Human mind works if you
are focused on solutions. No matter how confusing an obstacle is, if you are
focused on a solution, obstacles can not confuse you.
Allah has his way of testing a person about his goals. You may want something
but you do not know how much you are willing to do to get what you want.
Obstacles are the only way to see that what you want is something you are
willing to fight for. It is the only way to test if your inner desire will match
your efforts. You strength is not going to come from doing easy things in life,
it is not going to come from repeating things that you think you can do easily.
It will come from doing things that you once thought were impossible to do. Your
strength will come from jumping into the pool instead of wanting to learn to
swim watching others swim.
Yes, you will be scared. Yes, you will have fears. Yes, you will feel that you
may fail. Yes, you might be ashamed in advance of the social consequences you
may have to face if you failed. But, let all these thoughts be momentarily.
These are all human thoughts. Anybody can have them. It is not wrong to have
these thoughts but it is definitely wrong to let these thoughts stop you from
moving forward. Two things happen when you are facing OBSTACLES or PROBLEMS in
life...only two. One, if you run away from them, they will get bigger and bigger
until a time will come that you will crumble down in front of your obstacles and
lose. Two, if you face your problems and fight with them, remain positive, you
will win. And that experience of winning against your problems you once thought
were impossible to win against will give you confidence for the next time you
face a problem. Your subconscious will store your winning attitude in its memory
and will retrieve it the next time you are facing any situation of similar
nature.
It is wrong and absolutely wrong of successful people to tell the young ones
that they had the confidence to do everything right from the beginning of their
careers. I have never met such a human being. Confidence is developed over time.
Confidence is developed by doing things that you once thought were impossible to
do. What you need in the beginning of your career is courage..courage to face
adverse situations, Courage to face your fears. Courage to look problems into
the eyes and not run away. If you develop this courage, i will guarantee you
that confidence will follow and follow in abundance. There will be obstacles.
There will be doubts. There will be mistakes. There will be people laughing at
you. There will be friends who will discourage you. But with courage and hard
work, you will be able to overcome each and every obstacle of your life.
Your life will never be defined by what you have accomplished. At least not
based on my definition of a successful life. Your life will be remembered,
admired, and be inspirational for others depending on how you have faced the
obstacles of life with courage and overcame them. Once after a speech, in
America, somebody asked speaker, how do you define your success. He smiled and
replied.." If you define my life by the successes i have had, I have failed but
if you define my life by the failures i have turned into successes,
I HAVE SUCCEEDED."