A lion, a leopard and a cheetah are wild animals from the feline family that really excite me. They never feel sorry for themselves. A  cheetah, in particular, despite being the fastest runner of all animals, misses its prey nine out of 10 times, but the thought of  being a vegetarian never crosses its mind.

Imagine, after the ninth miss it declared: "Bugger this, let me go and sit under a tree." It  will inevitably starve to death. It knows that it has to carry on until it eats. It does whatever it takes and self-pity is not an option.

We, as humans, must also learn a lot from the persistence of the cheetah; never give up on pursuit of personal excellence. Victory is the fruits of determination while failure is the path of least persistence.

We must embrace our "misses" and stop succumbing to self-pity parties. We must remember that God's delays are not His  denials. They're just a way of separating the sheep from the goats.

Samuel Radebe, Heilbron, Free State