READER LETTER | Failure does not mean end of the world

With only a few weeks left in 2022, most of us are yet to reach our goals and realise our resolutions that we set at the beginning of the year. If you are disappointed in yourself for not having reached your  target, you must accept that the right opportunity will come your way anytime as long as you live.

You have to work hard to make your dreams a reality in 2023.  A lot of misfortunes befell us in the recent past...the deadly coronavirus, retrenchments, rising cost of living and the deaths of loved ones.

Maybe something insurmountable happened to you this year that seriously challenged your life and made it almost impossible for your breakthrough. Maybe you struggled to get your life back on track, but there is still hope. As Joyce Meyer says, "Never give up."

There are usually various roads that lead to one place. Some are bumpy, rocky  and crooked, but they still lead to the same destination. The race also doesn't belong to the swift but to those who endure until the end. You must never be tempted to give up or give in simply because you failed with your first attempt because failure is not the falling down, but is the staying down.

You must let failure be your teacher and not your undertaker. See it as a partner and not a foe. When you fail, it is a just opportunity to begin intelligently. We must see our failures as moments and not monuments. They are fresh opportunities and not final events.

Failure is the habit of quitting when overtaken by temporary defeat. Winners usually don't quit and quitters don't win. Success, on the other hand, is failure turned inside out. It is better to try and fail rather than excel at nothing. Success is not instant but distant.

Every successful person was once an unknown person that refused to give up on their dreams. Life is hard but not impossible. And the only way to succeed is not to worry about what anyone else is doing.

Samuel Radebe, Heilbron, Free State