You are winning if you don't quit

Before the tender age of thirty, he had failed at business twice,

suffered the death of his sweetheart, and experienced a mental

breakdown. In 1860, he was elected the sixteenth president of the

United States.
Perhaps no figure in American history has suffered as many setbacks

and failures as Abraham Lincoln. Born into poverty, he persevered

through personal tragedies, public failures, and lost elections to

become one of the most beloved and esteemed presidents in the history

of the United States of America.
Each failure spurred him to try harder, to strive for more, to refuse

to give up. Taking the lessons learned from those failures, he was

able to create a recipe for success. And succeed he did.

Rarely do we learn from our successes. Rather, it is our failures that

challenge us and teach us the most. From failure, we learn to

strategize. We learn to think outside the box, to look for new angles

and search in new directions.
In his compilation "Thoughts along the Way," author David J. Seibert

notes that the beloved late comedienne Lucille Ball was once asked to

leave drama school because it was believed she was too quiet and shy

to ever be successful. In his younger years, comedian and director

Woody Allen flunked out of a motion picture production class at New

York University. William Faulkner, who failed to graduate from high

school and was fired from an early postal job, went on to win the

Nobel Prize for literature in 1949.
How sad to think that the world may have never known the works of

these artists had they viewed such developments as a failure instead

of as a challenge. Instead of accepting that they could not succeed,

they proved that they could.
Perhaps Ms. Ball vowed to speak up, to be noticed. Maybe Mr. Allen

decided to study harder, to put in overtime. Possibly Mr. Faulkner

promised himself to write, and rewrite, and rewrite, until developing

the correct turn of phrase, the appropriate sentence structure.

Whatever messages these individuals gave themselves, one thing is

certain: they refused to quit.
When Christopher Columbus dropped anchor at what was to become known

as North America, he was perhaps experiencing the biggest failure of

his life. After all, he had set out to sail to the East Indies, and

indeed, believed himself to have arrived. Upon discovering his

mistake, he could have simply returned to the ship, berating himself

along the way, and retraced his route in hopes of finding the point at

which he drifted off course.
But how different our recitation of American history would be had he

done so! He did not meet his original goal, it's true, but he opened

himself up quite literally to the possibility of success in a

completely different direction.
Failure is simply a stepping stone, a lesson along the way. It is the

opportunity to learn and grow, to take a different route, to see

things in a new light.
Perhaps, Winston Churchill, a former British Prime Minister said it

best: "Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of

enthusiasm." When we view our failures as challenges, we're able to

maintain the enthusiasm needed to rejoin the fight.

Obviously the journey of success is not a simple one. However, your

ability to remain determined, focused, resilient, and steadfast will

determine whether you will succeed in life or not. There may be what I

called 'temporary challenges' in your quest to achieving true success,

developing the spirit of patience and having a dire hunger for success

will lead you to the Promised Land.
If I may, the word failure is not found in the dictionary of God. In

other words, God does not believe in failure. In fact, in His Holy

Book - Mathew 19:2, it is written“But Jesus beheld them, and said unto

them, with men this is impossible; but with God all things are

possible.”
In Mark 9:23, it is again written“Jesus said unto him, if thou canst

believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”

Finally in Mark 10:27, Jesus again hinted that.., “And Jesus looking

upon them saith, with men it is impossible, but not with God: for with

God all things are possible.”
Believe in yourself and remain strong-minded, resolute, gritty,

single-minded, unwavering, firm, dogged, indomitable, untiring, and

heroic: above all be optimistic in all your endeavours. We are not

victims of failure; you are winning if you don't quit.

CHRISTOPHER ADOBE-RAH ANALIMBEY.
You Are Winning If You Don't Quit.