I remember once telling my nephew Ato when he was
barely at the age of 3 that; “Hey Ato, when you fall, you got to rise again”. I
don’t know whether he understood my message or not but he smiled.
Confucius is attributed to have said “Our greatest
glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall”; that is true and relevant in the life of the person
who wants to succeed in this life and beyond.
I have watched with missed feelings
when one of the greatest and richest sports men of all times, Tiger Woods fall to his career-low of 58th in the world golf
rankings only for him to take back the glory of a true sports man yesterday as
the number 1 golfer in the world. A gist of his fall; he started the fall from
2010 till 2011 when he got to his lowest, and started progressively from that
time to being ranked among the 10 topmost golfers, then 5 and now first in the
world. Lest I forget, my Senior High School buddies; Matthew, George, Carl and
KP at Mfantsipim School remember him as our patron; the name of our clique
using the first letters of our nicknames spelt TIGER.
We were all disappointed in
what he did and due to that he paid heavily in his relationship with his wife,
career and even finances; since some of his sponsors withdrew their support for
him and did not see in him a role model figure.
My generation has seen men and
women go to the pinnacles of success in their chosen fields, only to plateau
and tip over, falling and breaking into pieces, never able to put their broken
pieces together and rising again. They fall and remain there and are forgotten
by the human race!
Tiger Woods is a model for self
leadership to every endeavour in everybody’s life. That we all at one point in
life will fall, whether in private or for the public eyes to see, but like an
uncle motivating his nephew, we got to dust ourselves put our broken pieces
together and rise again. We got to accept that we have messed up and apologise
to those we have betrayed their trust and believe in us, we got to forgive
ourselves and relying on the greatness in us that got us to the first triumph,
learn new strategies to get up and soar to victory again; because that is where
we belong.
This Easter, no matter how low
you have fallen to, I urge you to rise up, look up, dust yourself and start
again and like Tiger Woods, you will retake your place at the echelon of glory.
I always remember what Former
US President Theodore Roosevelt said which was
re-echoed by Former US President Richard
Nixon, both in his victory speech on
November 6, 1968, and in his resignation
address to the nation on
August 8, 1974:
“It is
not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man
stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit
belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and
again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does
actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great
devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the
end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at
least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those
cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat”
The Holy Bible in Micah 7:8 says:
“Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have
fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light”.
May you never fall and remain
there, may you rise and soar higher that your former glory. God always gives us
a reason to rise up with great human examples. Enjoy!
