What possibly could be the remedy of a lifetime of mistakes and bad judgments calls? Envy of others is the only words that comes to my mind whenever I think of my peers who started out at the same time with me on a level playing field whom today can lay claim to being ‘somebody’ either in a certain social circle, profession, achievement or circumstances. This feeling of envy of course is only directed towards those who have achieved rather outstanding outcomes in the same amount of time I took to become who I am, or who I am not, today.
Don’t get me wrong. I am extremely proud of them. The feeling of pride only a friend can have for another whenever he or she achieves a certain outstanding milestone in their lives. I can consider myself privileged to have crossed paths with some of the great individuals of my time. From outstanding athletes to brilliant academicians, well groomed and learned professionals to individuals whom have successfully raised beautiful children whom will one day inherit this beautiful world we live in.
As I look back, I could find many things that I would have set the record straight about given a chance to go back in time. However I also believe that, the choices which I had made at one point or another in my life had lead me to where I am today and to get to where I want to be tomorrow, I have to make choices today which will affect a favorable outcome. I don’t know if there is such a thing as too little too late or being too old to do something to become successful.
Whenever I get that thought, my mind will immediately do an auto search of my mind’s archives to retrieve the story of Colonel Sanders which at either 60 or 70, who got 1000 doors slammed in his face in the process of selling the rights to use his KFC chicken recipe, didn’t give up and became a screaming success after the 1001st client said yes and believed in him.
I remember being in a client’s office 9 years ago seeing a poster I never would forget. It said in bold letters ‘THE 3 SECRETS TO SUCCESS!’ 1.Think Big! 2.Work Hard! 3.Never give up! How many times have you heard of that before? If you’re like me, hearing it for the first time, I’m sure it’s definitely advice worth its weight in gold. However, 9 years down the road, I still don’t reckon I have achieved success yet.
However, have I ever considered what I consider as success? What benchmark or acid test do I apply to say my situation is a lost cause? I reckon I have set a very high standard for myself to achieve, that’s why even after numerous successes in life, I still find that I really am lacking something. But what is it?
Let’s do an inventory check, a nice apartment with a 360 degree view of the city, a car, high education with another kick ass degree on the way, a loving partner, parents and siblings. For the ordinary person, I reckon it can be more than anybody can ever ask for. In fact, if I were to compare myself to the average Malaysian, income wise earning 3k and less per month, which I’m sure represents about 80% of the entire workforce in Malaysia, I’m way better off. This would put me in the top 20% of the workforce. Now I’m not talking about the population in general. I think if I were to rank myself against the general population, the calculation would probably be like this: assuming KL population is 4 million, which is 15% of the entire 26 million people in Malaysia. Assuming I put myself in the top 25%, I would be in the top 5% of the Malaysian population earning a good living and living a good life. I wonder if I’d achieve that kind of success living in another country, like in Singapore or Australia. Although these places are excellent to live in and promise great job opportunities and quality of life, I’m not sure I will be able to be in the top 5% of the population there. In today’s world, where you rank is all that matters. To achieve success, it’s paramount that you know where you stand and implement changes your circumstances and make better decisions to get to where you want to go to. Clarity is power!
Ok this is part 2. To tell you the truth I took so long to complete this blog entry, I kinda lost my train of thought somewhere along the way. In the past 24 hours I did take the time to ponder about what I wrote here last night and it got me thinking. Am I really there yet? As in the top 5% of the entire population in Malaysia. I wonder what kind of benchmarks I would use to gauge that. Or maybe I’m not? I could well be swimming in the bottom 95% of the gene pool and quite contented with it.
Then I came to this conclusion. Life could be simple it could be complex. So far I have chosen the it to be complex, which is good from where I am, now. And then what? Is running a race your whole life and still running past 50 great? I know I wouldn’t wanna be running a race my whole life and wake up 20 years later telling myself, u know what? Maybe I shouldn’t be running like this after all.
It’s all about the choices we make and the actions we take. We have been conditioned from young that there is a fine line between right and wrong, so, when we do stuff right we get rewarded and when we do stuff wrong, we get punished. So we go about our lives trying our darnest not to fail or do the wrong thing. Which, in the end, could end up wrong as well. Perhaps its our fear of failure that lead us to failure in the end. What say you?
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