KNOCK DOWN ISNT KNOCK OUT

KNOCK DOWN ISN’T KNOCKOUT

            Followers of Heavyweight boxing will tell better–A knock down does not equal a knockout. A man may be hit down several times in a bout, but if he keeps getting up, he stands a chance to win. Great winners are not those who never failed but these who rise again whenever they fail.

            When asked his yard stick for success, George Patton said, “I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits the bottom”. Never allow the place you were hit down become your burial ground. Failure shouldn’t be your undertaker. Tony Alfonso taught his protégés, “When you miss a shot, never think of what you did wrong. Take the next shot thinking of what you must do right”. If you repeatedly try again and again, the next attempt will be the game winner.

            Michael Jordan is believed to be the greatest player in basketball history. He once said, “I can accept failure, but I can’t accept not trying again.” He later confessed,” I have failed over and over again -that is why I succeeded”. If you are a rugby fan you will understand that being knocked down is part of the game. It’s up to one to either stay down or pick up the oval ball and make a winning run.

            Nelson Mandela is arguable the greatest and most celebrated African ever. He told South Africans, “The greatest glory in living lies not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail”. How true! Little wonder Paul Harvey, African journalist and author, writes, “Someday, I hope to enjoy enough of what the world calls success so that someone will ask me, “What is the secret of it?” I shall say simply this. “I get up when I fall down”.

            There is hardly a better exercise than rising and falling and rising again. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, “Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising up every time we fall”. Always remember that the call is higher than the fall. God never sees one as a failure who has the courage to rise again after every fall. Peter was a ‘faller’. David, Moses etc had their falls at several points. But they all bounced back. Get back up when you get knocked down. The good news is: “You retain the inert ability to rise again no matter how long you have stayed down. It is never too late to rise again. Knockdown isn’t knockout. You may not get it right always, but you just need to keep it rolling at all time.

KNOCKDOWN ISSNT KNOCK OUT

KNOCK DOWN ISN’T KNOCKOUT

            Followers of Heavyweight boxing will tell better–A knock down does not equal a knockout. A man may be hit down several times in a bout, but if he keeps getting up, he stands a chance to win. Great winners are not those who never failed but these who rise again whenever they fail.

            When asked his yard stick for success, George Patton said, “I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits the bottom”. Never allow the place you were hit down become your burial ground. Failure shouldn’t be your undertaker. Tony Alfonso taught his protégés, “When you miss a shot, never think of what you did wrong. Take the next shot thinking of what you must do right”. If you repeatedly try again and again, the next attempt will be the game winner.

            Michael Jordan is believed to be the greatest player in basketball history. He once said, “I can accept failure, but I can’t accept not trying again.” He later confessed,” I have failed over and over again -that is why I succeeded”. If you are a rugby fan you will understand that being knocked down is part of the game. It’s up to one to either stay down or pick up the oval ball and make a winning run.

            Nelson Mandela is arguable the greatest and most celebrated African ever. He told South Africans, “The greatest glory in living lies not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail”. How true! Little wonder Paul Harvey, African journalist and author, writes, “Someday, I hope to enjoy enough of what the world calls success so that someone will ask me, “What is the secret of it?” I shall say simply this. “I get up when I fall down”.

            There is hardly a better exercise than rising and falling and rising again. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, “Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising up every time we fall”. Always remember that the call is higher than the fall. God never sees one as a failure who has the courage to rise again after every fall. Peter was a ‘faller’. David, Moses etc had their falls at several points. But they all bounced back. Get back up when you get knocked down. The good news is: “You retain the inert ability to rise again no matter how long you have stayed down. It is never too late to rise again. Knockdown isn’t knockout. You may not get it right always, but you just need to keep it rolling at all time.

KEEP YOUR COOL

KEEP YOUR COOL

Never allow adversity of any magnitude whatsoever weigh you down. Always remind yourself that you have an inherent ability or grace to handle any problem or challenge that comes your way. Always keep your cool. Pull yourself together and stay in charge at all cost.

Adversity’s most potent weapon against man is panic. Once you allow it to overpower you it masterminds you ruin. However, if you keep your cool and stay right on track, you will find a silver lining in every cloud of despair. Just everything that happens under the sun is for your good, no matter how bad it looks on arrival.

Be like Viktor Frankl. Humiliated, tortured and frustrated by the Nazis, the Austria born Jewish psychiatrist lost all but his cool. Despite the gruesome murder of his parents, brother and pregnant wife, Frankl was determined to turn all to his good. He focused on a glorious future beyond the concentration camp. Instead of to crack in despair, the young doctor chose to encourage every other Jew he could reach out to in the concentration camp. Frankl also recorded, on smuggled pieces of paper, his theories, experiments and experiences, which he later made use of in his books.

            At the end of the war, with Hitler dead, Frankl returned to Vienna and became Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Vienna Medical School – a position he retained for the rest of his career. Asked how he endured such cruel treatment with a positive outlook, Frankl replied, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedom is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances to choose one’s own way”.

            Choose your own way. Choose right. Choose to stay positive and hopeful at all cost. Choose joy. Choose a genial disposition. Choose happiness. Choose a positive mental attitude. At the long run, it all boils down to your reaction to what happened to you. What happens to you is not as important as how you react to it. Like the woman whose only son died, shout it loud and clear to everyone’s hearing “It is well”.

            Always remember, every evil is some good spelt backward from which the wise read wisdom. Just every problem has a solution only if we perhaps change our negative attitude toward it.