CONDEMNED TO SUCCESS

WISDOM NUGGET: "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."
                                                                                                           - Albert Einstein,

Isn't it amazing? The fact that problems are gifts, whichever way you look at it. It is exactly the way it is.

Truth be told, the presence of problems in our lives have in countless ways contributed a lot more in moving us to where we are today, than their absence have. I'm sure a brief stock taking will prove this to you.

Yinka Obalade, in an interview talked about the origins of his success. He humorously attributed his success to the problem of poverty. He explained that his fortunes in life came about as result of his condemnation to poverty.

He came from such a poor family that when people often cursed a person; they would say "may you be as poor as the Obalade family". There was no way he could have gone to school without getting a scholarship. He had only one option, which was to emerge best student in his primary to qualify for a government scholarship, which he did. At secondary school level, the same decision would make him proceed to the university on scholarship, were he still had to maintain the top position in his entire faculty, all through four years to continue to qualify to enjoy sponsorship. He either had to be the best student or not be a student at all. So he graduated with a first class by default. Simply put, he said "poverty condemned me to success."

Is poverty not one of the greatest eaters of men in life? Yet, as our key scripture says, "out of the eater has come something to eat". Out of the aching problem of acute poverty was born a die-hard determination to succeed. If Yinka Obalade said poverty condemned him to success, then even you will agree with me that that is indeed a good condemnation. I guess the longer he stayed with the problem of poverty, the more successful he had to become. Hear Albert Einstein, "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."

This is how Brian Adams puts it, "Difficulties are opportunities to better things; they are stepping-stones to greater experience. When one door closes, another opens; as a natural law it has to balance."