KEEP STRUGGLING UNTIL YOU SUCCEED...

 KEEP STRUGGLING UNTIL YOU SUCCEED

Struggle has taken an untold number of people around the world to greatness, financial prosperity and comfort. It is a very important key to success. Unfortunately, many people do not know this. Even the few, who know, do not use it well to their benefit.

Often we here people complaining that they struggle so much, as if struggle were a bad thing. They cry and pity themselves because they always have to struggle to get even the smallest things in life. This makes it appear as if struggle were a bad thing. Furthermore, some people even think that they have to struggle to get even the smallest things in life because God has abandoned them.

Often, you here people laughing at others for having to struggle before achieving their aims in life. For this reason some people see struggle as something degrading. Hence, they do not want others to know that they are struggling to get what they wish to get.

The fact is that struggle is a good thing depending on how we take it. It is truly said that struggle can make or break us. It can lead to greatness just as it can bring about failure. If we take a negative attitude towards struggle, it will become a burden to us, but if we take a positive attitude, it can lead to tremendous benefit. It is negative to look at struggle as suffering or to fear and complain about it. On the other hand it is positive to see it as a part of life and a stepping stone to achievement. Taken this way, it will serve as challenge and can therefore become an asset.

Nothing worthwhile comes without some amount of struggle. Struggle has taken some people to great heights. Students will easily pass their exams, be they promotion or competitive, if they learn how to struggle. Whether you are a business man, a teacher or a leader, your success will come from struggling.

In every calling, profession, walk of life, one needs to struggle in other to succeed. Hence we struggle to get a sound education, good health, riches, and a rise in position, to gain recognition or become great. We must struggle to get happiness in our homes, discipline ourselves, choose our priorities, and modify our desires and ambitions, when we find that they conflict with those of others. So you see that all circumstances of life demand that we struggle. In short, life from birth to death is a struggle. We stop growing when we stop struggling.

Through struggling, we grow, we expand, we develop, we progress, and we become wiser and stronger if we handle it rightly. Strength, be it physical or mental, can only be gotten through struggle. For example, your muscles can only become strong if they are out to constant use.

The trees in the forest offer a great example of what struggle can do. In the thick forest where it is hard to reach sunshine, the trees grow tall because they struggle to reach the sun. But because they are heavily protected against wings, they are soft. Meanwhile, the trees or shrubs on the hill tops are resistant since they face daily opposition from the wind and other adverse effects of the weather. As they are twisted forwards and backwards, they develop resistance. This is the same with man, the more man struggles, the more resistant he becomes.

Of course, no one can deny that there is pain in most forms of struggle, but life has thought us that every pain comes along with seeds of something useful. Hence all your pains, disappointment, hardships etc are an opportunity for you in disguise. Success is achieved by those who try and those who struggle. Failure is a stranger to such people. In fact, a person only fails in life when he stops struggling. A person who knows the benefit that is derived from struggling, considers what others will see as failure or suffering only as temporary defeats that can be overcome by struggle.

There are no barriers, no difficulties, no obstacles that cannot be overcome by struggle. Through struggle our minds are sharpened, through struggle, our imaginations are quickened, through struggle even our faith in God is built and through struggle, our will power is strengthened. Our imagination will remain dormant unless there is a necessity to sharpen it and that necessity is provided by struggle.

The strength of our character can be known from the number of times we stand up and charge forward despite how many times we have fallen before then. When there is a crisis, those who have stood the test of struggle are usually chosen as leaders to take the rest of the people out of it.

History abounds with outstanding examples of men who and women who have left their mark in this world because of their ability to struggle.

One of Africa’s most illustrious sons, Kwame Nkrumah, struggled tremendously throughout his life before he became prominent. As a student in the United States of America, he struggled very much to survive. He had very little money and financial support to take him through his studies but he had to work in order to satisfy his needs. He worked in the college library and served in the dining hall during school time. During holidays, he sold fish in the streets of New York. Often, he washed dishes in restaurant and served as waiter on ships. He also worked in factories. Once he did not have money for lodging, he took to the streets, until one day he almost died of cold.

It needed a man who could struggle like Nkrumah to make it. Even when he was in London, Nkrumah remained poor; he could not afford money for food and lodging. He used to go to the dustbins and pick up thrown away heads of fish to make food for himself and his friends. Sometimes he survived because his landlord gave him food free of charge. Yet he never gave up on his studies. He still obtained a bachelor’s degree in theology and two masters’ degrees in Education and philosophy.

Back in Ghana, he did not stop struggling. He made use of the strength he had gained through struggle in the United States and Britain. Hence he struggled for independence of his country. It was a hard struggle in the course of which he was even imprisoned. But his struggle yielded fruit and he won independence for his country and became the first president.

One thing to be noted about struggle is that it is a life-long process. It does not end with one success or even with a few of them. Struggle comes day by day, our by hour, minute by minute and second by second. No one escapes struggles. The big and small, the rich and the poor, the clever and the dull, the weak and the strong all have to struggle.

We’re born to struggle.

Throughout life, struggle!

Struggle to eat,

Struggle to know, struggle to know,

Struggle to get what you want,

For through struggle, man achieves his aims.

As you struggle to along, do not be afraid of anything like failure, for,

            Life is a journey. On your way, you may tumble once, rise and proceed

            You may even stumble again, rise and proceed

            You may yet stumble again the third time, rise and still proceed. For in the course of a journey, a man may stumble and fall many times before he arrives. That’s how life is made, that’s how life will remain. Therefore, fear not a fall, but struggle on and on until you get to where you are going.

ELAMBO NEVILLE TAMANJONG 

WRITER/ACTOR/POET