Lessons for a father - Persistence The Conqueror

 “O snail
Climb Mount Fuji
But slowly, slowly!”
― Kobayashi Issa

A couple of things happened this week that made me realize, once again, how important it is for all of us to try and keep moving towards our goals. There will always be challenges on the way, but our sole intention should be to set a goal and never deter from the path that takes us there. And, who reminded me of this goal last week: two very disparate people.

It started off with our son trying to crawl. He has not been successful at it yet, and the attempts toggle between funny and sad, but he has never heard of the word failure. Every day, as soon as he gets on his belly, he goes at it with such ferocity that if he were in a pool of water he would be a swimming champion by now. But success, or at least the general acceptance of the term, has not patted his back yet. That does not deter him from trying and giving the next attempt his everything. There is no sense of "what-ifs" for him. Neither is there any work done to come up with an "Option B" - i.e., may be he can get away with an easier form of movement like rolling. That, from an infant, is a huge lesson in life. Everything from exercising, to relationships and to our professional lives can get so much better if we never thought of failure and just kept at it with an intent to reach our goal (whatever that goal may be).

The second part of the lesson came from a champion Tennis player. Andy Murray, of Great Britain, won the Wimbledon Tennis Championship today. If you follow Tennis, you would know that Andy, albeit a wonderful player, has not been able to fulfill the 77 year old dream of his country to win the, arguably, most coveted title of the world of that sport till date. Commentators and News-waalahs mentioned today that the win belongs to the entire nation and not just to one man. I would argue against that but would add that the celebrations do belong to the entire country. Andy Murray has been working very hard for the past many years now. With the presence of Tennis All-Time-Greats, like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, on the other side of the court, winning has not come easy. He has had to toil long and hard and so what he managed to achieve today was very well deserved.

Courtesy: BBC

Both have taught me (completely unknowingly) that to be successful at anything I do, I have to remove the idea of failure from my life. There might be hard work and losses along the way, but to get to where I want to be, I need an unwavering trust and commitment in myself and to my goals. Both, in their own way, are champions.