To surrender ourselves to circumstance may be liberating in that we lose the responsibility that comes with leading our lives, but with come some very serious side effects, namely a lack of self-motivation which entails major losses for the quality of our lives. We become bitter and envious when those we percieve to be less talented or less intelligent ourselves achieve more than us, and we lose control of our lives.
‘Do as little as you can get away with’ is some people;s philosophy, and then they put someone esle down for going the extra mile. To put down is easy, but to withstand that put down is not, so the laziness and bitterness has a tendency to propogate through people. Negativity breeds like a weed, and often requires a herculean effort to overcome it.
How often has societies expectations or presumptions steered us away from a certain path? How often have we undershot our goals so as it to keep within the community standards of achievement? We all know of the american class ‘nerd’ shunned by his peers, or the Arab ‘bookworm’ considered uncool? How about those who step out of the box to go the extra mile? Those who achieve that which we never tried to achieve, dont we find scenarios to detract from that person’s achievement, like we imagine they are well connected, had extra help with studies, was blessed with a foreign passport or fell upon a pot of gold?
I know, achievement is a mixture of opportunity, intellect, skill and sheer luck, but genius as they say is only 1% inspiration the rest is all blood and sweat. So whether this inspiration is in the form of intellect, skill or chance, to turn that into a success is mainly up to you, and we should not let anyone detract from that.
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Talking Virtually To Myself 
Lovely article,
Many tend to forget that some will feel like underachievers and then grow to see others break their records and then it happens to them
Part of growing up is to acknowledge that there are other smart(er) people in the world 🙂 and in our personal area of expertise!
Now, many do achieve good positions due to circumstances, I know people like that. Failed to even finish high school, failed in every job, forged a degree and now he’s one of the mangers of a multi million dollar companies. Ahh, but the catch, it’s his brother in law’s company!
Do I think he works hard? historically speaking … no. But maybe things have changed. One thing is certain he didn’t have the credentials to fill such a position
Anyway, to cut a long story short, Yes, some get there by circumstances, their numbers are higher than one hopes for, but again, life is not fair, and that’s a fact!
About your lucky friend, and he is one lucky man! would his brother in law put him in such a position IF he was liable to lose all the money? I doubt it 🙂
But some people are leeches, living off the success of others, but even that requires a certain amount of self motivation 🙂
It’s those of us who feel trapped in their situation, and feel like failures that need to boost our motivation.
I agree, chances are you will meet someone who is better than you (on what you deem better), but even that is a blessing. I remember once i had this math problem to solve, and i reached the point where I concluded that it was undoable, i then discovered that someone had done… within 2 hours i had solved it!!! I was very self motivated then 🙂
But I am afraid I have lost all that now, seeing people with less qualifications get into positions, when i was sidelined because of shyness. I do not like the culture of self worship, in that it is the only way to achieve. I am slowly learning to do so, but mark the slowly 🙂
Life can be unfair, but I wished to impart that we should not allow oursleves to be victimised by it… even use it to propel ourselves forward 🙂
thanks for stopping by 🙂
Maybe it’s your fault that they have a specific quality (ie, tooting their own horns, or beating their own drums) to the point that people hear them louder than you. And automatically think they are more qualified.
Maybe the position requires such loud people and not more intelligent! who knows!
But the fact that we both agree on, is that life is unfair, I might add that it may self correct, but don’t hold your breath!
You know, I misread the title for some reason and I thought it said, “victims of circumcision” and I wanted to add my voice 🙂
lol, actually the positions require both… intelligence and tooting, i am doing exercises o increase my lung capacity :p
Hmm, it often does self correct, but not necessarily in the way you expected, and sometimes it takes you a while to notice.
btw: LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL at ur last comment… i guess my post must have an anti-climax for you 😀
Yeah, it brought back painful memories … oh … hold on a second .. I can’t remember that ..
Never mind 🙂 I’m just crazy sometimes
hehe!