Nothing attempted, nothing gained
Some people discourage attempts because they are continuously afraid of failure. But if failure has to come, it had better come while trying to succeed. Read the biographies of our greatest men. They failed many times. Louis Pasteur, for instance, was described as `a scientific Phoenix who arose triumphant from the ashes of his own mistakes.’
We cannot always control what happens to us, but we can always control how we respond to our failures. The blows of life may knock a person down. But, he must rebound from defeat just a rubber ball rebound when you throw it in the ground. Life has its rhythms, as the ebb and flow of the tide. So a person must learn `to labor and to wait’ using the lessons of failures to build for the future.
The habit of putting off for tomorrow and the inability to make up one’s mind are common but disastrous human traits. All of us suffer from them to a certain extent, while some of our failures in life are wholly due to them. When Harry Truman became president of the United States, he immediately put a card on his desk saying-`buck passing stops here!’ too many people rust away because they are continuously passing the Buck. They are always shifting their jobs to others. `Procrastination is the thief of time’ is an old but very appropriate saying. Whenever you put off doing what you should, you are throwing away opportunity and time. Both the treasures cannot be replaced or renewed.
Similarly when it comes to decisions, be sure to reason out yourself. No doubt, you will have to get certain facts others, if they really have them and you don’t know them. But do not let others decide on your behalf. Nothing is as pitiful as a person who has `no backbone’ and who always have to refer to others before he can decide anything.
No man can ever succeed in anything by putting if off. Nor is any man fit for responsibility unless he can take decisions. To succeed, we must root out these negative traits and build up faith in ourselves and trust in God.