Tí ẹyẹ kò bá fín ẹyẹ níràn, ojú ọrun tó ẹyẹ ẹ́ fò láì fara kanra.
If youre from a certain tribe in nigeria, the yoruba tribe so to speak, then you most likely know this proverb.
For the non yoruba indigenes of the world, a translation would go;
the sky is big enough for birds to fly without colliding
ẹyẹ meaning bird
. A lot of people are actually in an imaginary competition with competitors who don’t care about them or even worse sometimes; with imaginary competitors that don’t even exist in the first place. A lot of people often have this obnoxious and harmful notion in their heart that if someone else somewhere does not make mistakes and miss it, an opening for them to succeed can never happen. Hence, though not expressly spoken, however, subtlety, people with this line of thought are hoping and praying that someone somewhere will have problems in life that will usher them in to replace that person.
However, is it really true that if someone else does not suffer loss, we can’t make a headway in life? The real problem is that a lot of people are very reactive in their modus operandi of life. They are busy waiting on the wings for that job to come, for that big opportunity somewhere to come instead of being proactive and meticulous enough to create an opening for themselves. Instead of acquiring skills and equipping themselves with knowledge that will make them carve a niche for themselves thereby creating an opening for themselves, they will be busy acquiring other negative abilities such as slander, backbiting and destructive criticism or making light of what others are doing so that perhaps those occupying those lofty positions they desire can be brought down and they will replace them.
Quenching the light of others does not make you shine brighter.
Men and women who has truly imparted the world and made remarkable giant strides are adamant trailblazers and unrepentant pathfinders. They didn’t wait for an opening or an opportunity to present itself, they created one. They know that life is only overcrowded in the market of mediocrity and not at the upper echelon of success. The Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gate of this world were not waiting for someone somewhere to miss out so that they can take over, they came up with something truly revolutionary and that is why they are household names. The list goes on and on.
Life is not turn by turn, we are all just at different levels of personal development. Until you have been able to develop yourself enough and increase in capacity to be able to truly announce yourself to the world, life will never be “your turn”. Until you enter that personal competition with yourself where you want to just do better than you did yesterday, set new personal records and milestones and brazing yourself up to smash them and set new ones, you will forever wait for your turn. When people are saying “you are really trying”, the man who is not just passively waiting for fortunes to just smile at him will respond by saying “I can do much more better than that”.
The danger of not competing with yourself is that a lot of times, your potentials is way much more than that of those with whom you are competing and this will limit you and make you to never realize your potential. Sometimes and very common too, it makes you concentrate so much on the strength of others and magnify your own weakness while you totally forgot that there are things you can do better than those people too.
Don’t try to be perfect, just make sure you are learning. Even if you are waiting for an opportunity to take you to the next level, you must be busy preparing for it not by making light of what others are doing or by destructive criticism, you should prepare by ensuring you acquire the necessary skillset to take advantage of the opportunity. Don’t wait passively, wait actively. Keep leaning and acquiring skills that will make you not just get the opportunity, but that will ensure that you bring an additional dimension that will improve or better still even revolutionize what is expected. The Late Michael Jackson was not the first pop artist and neither was Michael Jordan the first basketball player, however, one thing these Michaels have in common is that they took their respective career of choice to the next level.
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