Of success and sacrifice

THE world is a highly complex machine, constantly shooting individual efforts in the legs while elevating some others to greatness in the twinkle of an eye, seemingly following no pattern in its determination of who gets to succeed or when they get to succeed. But is it really? A closer inspection of the universe’s inner workings would show that that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Life is a much simpler and ordered mechanism than that. It rewards those who earn it, and those who don’t deserve the rewards simply don’t get it. But why is the assumption that the world is inherently difficult so widespread. It all boils down to how the 21st century human is wired. In today’s world, especially in our part of the world, every one has the belief that they, and they alone,  have been placed on this earth with the goal of being great i.e achieving greatness without any thought as to the real basis of greatness and success. When they get disappointed later in life by not realizing any greatness, having not worked seriously for it, they become disenchanted and disillusioned, changing to the new position that the world is a bad and unfair place.

Yet, the real question would be why people would think that they are destined for greatness upon nothing concrete in the first place? To answer, we would have to explore the processes and contours of socialization in the contemporary world. The warped foundation, to be sure, starts from childhood, I believe. From the moment children are born, they are pumped full of promises of being the next big thing. Their parents continually tell them they would be great and successful in life. In all fairness, there is nothing wrong with parents helping their children to develop a sense of self-respect and self-confidence. The problem lies in how much self-confidence or, to be more precise, over-confidence, these little children are given. Slowly, the children start to have a warped outlook on life, seemingly presuming that they deserve whatever is given to them and that they do not need to ask for it, work for it or do anything for it but rather they are taught to expect it.

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The child comes, asks his or her parents for a biscuit while the parent is busy, what happens next: the parent abandons whatever he/she is doing in order to go and get the biscuit and gives it to the child. Another scenario: the parent at first doesn’t give the child what he/she wants, the child throws tantrums and then gets what he/she wants. The child is continually taught that immediate gratification is the answer. At about age ten, the proponents of this theory have multiplied. Not only are the parents the ones feeding the child’s ego now, but also at school, church, the neighbourhood and the society at large, the child is presented with schemes to cut corners and achieve things without really working hard for them.  In reality, however, we all should know that exceptionality is not a common attribute. Yet, in the neighbourhood, the child witnesses a barrage of different lifestyles. Young men and women who seemingly have no jobs driving flashy cars, wearing the latest trends and having the biggest houses. It doesn’t get better for our synoptical child though. As he/she grows into adolescence, the new teenager is catapulted into a whole new environment. The teenager starts to use social media and is exposed to the ideals of pop stars and the showy display of advertising as the prevalent culture. In time, in the absence of dutiful parents to advise and direct otherwise, the teen begins to adopt the ways, ideals and lifestyles of the global pop culture. Dressing like them, talking like them and wanting to live like them. The teen continues with this line of thought all the way to university and carries it into adulthood.

At this time, now an adult, heor she is riddled with society’s expectations and therefore gets a job with a salary and continues in his or her ways. But then, after a few years it begins to become apparent that his or her lifestyle is not sustainable with the salary being received. He or she then begins to wonder how come that the prophesied greatness has not befallen himor her. Then he or she starts to lament on how difficult life is to his or her friends, all of whose lives follow similar patterns. They too agree and they all complain about how things aren’t working out for them while they continue to lie to themselves that one day, they’ll get to the top. That is how the life of the average person living in our world today plays out with the belief that they could be exceptional and wildly successful without training to have exceptional skills and making the efforts and the hardwork to sustain such skills.  In truth, our society plays a large part in causing these problems in the average young human being , by not curbing the rise and effect of social media and not taking an effective step to stop over-confidence and misplaced and misdirected optimism from a young age and helping the youth to have a balanced view of success.

Picasso did not stop painting even when he went blind but kept at it. Mozart’s life was a mess but the great ability he possessed shone through in the devotion to his work. Martin Luther King had a family but died relatively young in the course of prosecuting his beliefs. Shakespeare was a troubled man. Fela was a troubled man. Soyinka is an exceptional man no doubt, but an eccentric one at that, yet devoted to his craft. Achebe was also a great man and very different from Soyinka but sharing the same attribute of devotion to work. What marks all of these successful people is not just their exceptionality, but the devotion to their craft and skills. The point I am trying to make is that there is always a sacrifice for success and that today’s society does not inculcate this important point or promote it. Even those who are exceptional and successful today have made sacrifices.

Steve  Jobs made sacrifices, Bill Gates made sacrifices, Mark Zuckerberg made sacrifices. Larry Page, Elon Musk, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Tim Cook; they all made sacrifices so that they could be great, exceptional, and the world rewarded them with success for those sacrifices. But what sacrifices has the average person made to take him/her to greatness when apparently he/she is regarded as average precisely because his/her sacrifices have been altogether average? The point is it is mostly exceptional sacrifices that result in exceptional successes; with average sacrifices giving also average results. Without a doubt, the average person has suffered hardship. What is therefore required is for the average person to be prepared to not only have exceptional skills, but to want to give exceptional sacrifices in order for his/her dreams to be taken to the next level. Till those sacrifices have been made and those differences made apparent, no average person would likely become exceptional.

The world therefore may not be the perfect or ideal place we want, but it is also not an absolutely unfair environment where people reap without planting. Rather, in spite of all its imperfections, the world still requires exceptional hardwork and skills and commitment from those who want to be very successful. And it is this lesson that those of us of the new generation have to learn and internalize to know our place in the world. We want to know that we cannot build something real of success on nothing of sacrifice. Which is why we cannot continue with our sense of entitlement and wanting to make it without really working for it which ends only in deep disappointment. When we do, it would be easier navigating our way even in the present world.

• Wale-Olaitan is of the Department of Computer Science, Kola Daisi University, Ibadan.