The moment we are born into this world, we automatically inherit the unfortunate bonus of violent competition. The world’s population is one of over 7 billion people and rising but sadly the resources and “goodies “available that make the comfort of living pleasant, do not match the World’s populace. Demand outweighs supply.
This has existed since creation, but sadly in recent decades, the seemingly very few free “goodies” from Nature, like good air, sunshine, and even water are now limited in supply due to man-made pollution, man to man’s cruelty to the other, etc.
The inherited excessive demand for a limited supply of these goodies provokes us as humans to compete from birth till death. The one who gets more of these “goodies” for their own use when they please are deemed generally as the successful ones amongst us.
Success in life, obviously means different things to different people, some belief, having a family and being able to feed, clothe, house, cater and be present for them is a success, whilst some think being able to afford a private flight into space for a few hours costing hundreds of millions of Euros, is Success.
Sadly, in this world of plenty, to some, the bare ability to stay alive is considered a success. Does this really depend on luck?
With so many striving to own the most from the limited supply, surely it cannot be just luck that determines success, or is it?
Understandably, being born into a Royal family could be considered as a lucky situation that guarantees success by many, but recent events like that of the Prince Harry of the UK and wife princess Megane gave up their “prince hoods” and the believed astronomical benefits and comfort that come with it puts a total question mark on this.
Hard work And Perseverance Pay?
Having traveled the world and had the luxury of “fraternizing” with people from different races and cultures, I have come to believe that, when it comes to being successful, the end game is simply being better than our peers, since we are all Rivals in some kind of way!
Our peers, as much as they love us, will never “gift” us privileges ahead of themselves or play second fiddle just for the fun of it.
Most legendary humans in life who have the role model icon status in life due to their success and admiration by many have put in or done things one way or the other at a certain time, differently than their less successful peers.
It looks from the outside to be easy and effortless how they achieve greatness, but that easy look comes from so much work, sacrifices, and a totally different view of things, behind the scenes, at times behind closed doors more than many realize or could even imagine.
They become so good due to this, it makes it look easy and some then see them as being, just lucky!
With 6 NBA championship rings won, as a star player of the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan is undoubtedly the Greatest of All-time Professional basketballers. He could do it all in excellence; Attack, dribble, defend, run, and above all motivate colleagues to be at their best to dominate.
It looked so easy and many thought he was just lucky to have the talent.
In my continued research and hunger to learn, I was fortunate to read, listen to people who knew Michael Jordan personally and watch documentaries from credible networks on the legend. The truth was not that simple, pretty, or in any way born out of luck. In fact, I discovered, that Michael Jordan’s greatness came from the fact that he always believed he was an unlucky person and hence needed to do more than the others to succeed.
Edson Arantes Do Nascimento, A.K.A Pelé is the sole human being ever to have won three soccer world cups, as a star player, scoring over 1,200 goals scored and, in my eyes, arguably the Greatest Footballer of all time. He dominated the world soccer scene for over 12 years.
Pelé was born into abject poverty, worked so hard to master the art of “footballing” to the point where he could near-perfectly play with both feet, score at will with the head, perfectly control the ball with all parts of his body, shoot accurately with both feet, run faster than most, defend, pass the ball, dribble several players at a go, score at will…. well, you get the drift, he was good at everything.
The same research on Pele brought to my knowledge that he not only worked harder than most, he had a personal fanatical drive for success and hard work, unrivaled by anyone.
Pele succeeded in spite of brutal opposition, challenges and encountered limitations mostly due to everything other than luck.
A closer look at the images attached for your enjoyment of Pelé and Michael Jordan will strike you at the extraordinary physical fitness these two gigantic superstars possessed. They were exceptionally fit thanks to their extreme physical hard work, dedication to training, and meticulousness. No luck!
Of course, if these two case studies used above were born physically impaired, they wouldn’t be the world’s best in these professions, but we have witnessed handicapped people by no fault of theirs who have dominated the world with so much success it is quite humbling. If you doubt me, Watch the Para Olympics currently going on in Japan.
What these athletes are capable of and are extremely successful at achieving is humbling. Life is excruciatingly hard for most of us, let’s not make it harder by just hopping on luck, it pays to borrow from the above, and above all, remember to pray, God’s love is not based on luck either but available when we ask!
