WHEN WE FALL,WHAT NEXT

Emotions are a very strong part of we humans, some of us might be masters at controlling our actions, but we often find it difficult controlling our emotions. It is only human to feel sad or depressed when we fail or fall in our quest to achieve success. But our greatest problems begin when we refuse to rise up from our crash spot.

Many people after failure, like to hang the cross of the victimised on their necks and they often sought after pity and compassion from people around them. Some use the defence mechanism of blaming those around them for their failure, others just look for ways to run away from their failure;often denying it, even taking it to the level of creating fictional thoughts to psyche themselves. Well, i don't totally blame them because without expressing ourselves with words, we individuals have a way of making failure look like a sin by exhibiting disgust in our actions. Personally, i've been abused by failure- now i don't solely mean in terms of failing major exams, i've failed at some businesses i tried to invest in, i've failed at doing the right thing at the right time, i've failed to be a better person to my friends, i've failed to give my best shot in times of trials, i've failed to think big, i've failed in my search for love and even when i found love, i failed to make it last, sometimes i fail to appreciate loved ones.

A friend of mine attempted suicide once he felt failure had taken a stronghold on him and his life was going south. Sometimes people fail due to circumstances beyond their control. So what do we do when we fail, i say we reflect upon our mistakes, take to note that failing itself is not a disease it is when we fail to rise to the occasion by taking the right steps to correct our blunders that it becomes pathologic. Like a popular naija saying goes "man wey dey ground dey fear fall?" meaning "can a man already on the ground be scared of falling?" so why make the ground look like your only option when you can rise up to succeed. I suggest we borrow a strand of resilience from the agama lizard whom when it falls from an iroko tree praises itself and goes back to climb the tree. Thomas Edison finally figured out how to make the electric bulb after 999 attempts, when asked about how he felt while he was failing, he said he learnt 998 ways not to make a bulb. An old saying goes "failure is the mother of success". I would say, successful men today who were good at failing, changed their story by using failure as a catalyst to propagate success thereby making them fail to fail. When we fall, what next, we must stand up.

...Ayo Babatunde