Saturday, February 21, 2009

Why Do Most People Fail In Life?

Few days ago, my Boss saw a copy of the book written by Steve Pavlina: Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth and  he became interested and asked where he could get a copy for himself. I told him I ordered it over the internet through Amazon Store I went further to open the author’s website for him so that he could read some of the articles there.

 I purposely printed an article where Steve gave ten reasons people should never get a job. The article got him hooked and he became sober for most part of the day. He was able to reflect over the past years of not fulfilling his dreams. He ought to be running his own business by now rather than working for somebody who is not even up to him in age.

His reactions got me thinking and I realized that the only main reason, aside other factors which I am not going to talk about here now, people fail in life is due to the fear of unknown. Most people really want to see clearly what lies in the dark before they make the move; they are waiting for the perfect conditions.

How many times have you decided to purse a course of action or vision that you are very passionate about but find it impossible to take off because you are not sure of what lies beyond the present? You don’t want to take off until you are sure that the outcome will be exactly what you anticipated. And the result? You never get off where you are.

It happens to every one of us at one time or the other in our lifetime. But those that do move are those that dare to take the courage and plunge into the unknown; they look at the fear of unknown in the face and move towards it.

Somebody once said that:

“Courage is not the absence of fear; but the ability to move on despite the fear”.

 it is better to try and make mistakes or face numerous challenges than sit back and expect things to get perfected or until a soothsayer comes around and say “go ahead the coast is clear.”

No doubt many of us have missed great opportunities in life because we could not see and actually go beyond our fears. How sad in retrospect!

I used to belief that those that are successful in life are luckier than the rest of the society that are struggling to make ends meet. But now, I know better. Opportunities in life go to those that are ready for it. Why do people keep working on jobs they don’t like? They are afraid to start their own business, because of fear of not succeeding at it.  Not even now that the internet has simplified the way business is conducted over the internet.

I eventually encouraged him and he promised place order for his own copy so that he could learn how to overcome the fear of unknown in his life.

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