The Sterility of Guaranteed Success

I can’t imagine anything worse than a guarantee that you won’t fail at something. Yes, it’s a superficially appealing idea, but what would be the point of that type of success? Where is the journey through ups and downs, successes and failures? What are you actually achieving if it is pre-ordained that you will succeed?

I remember years ago a teenager who found that everything sporting came naturally to him. By 14 he was playing for his county at cricket and he was playing golf off a two handicap. He could have chosen to focus on either sport and been very likely to succeed. By the age of 16 he had given up both because he found it boring. He didn’t find a challenge in either so it wasn’t of any consequence to him how good he was. The interesting thing was that four of us played a round of golf together once and at the start he was playing badly but you could see how his swing had that flow that the rest of us lacked. I was so bad that I wouldn’t even say I hacked my way round, I made a mockery of the game! Around the turn something clicked and he started playing like the two handicapper he used to be. It was a challenge on that day to get back to where he used to be and he was under par for the back nine. Even as I was melting down I was watching him and thinking that he was poetry in motion on the golf course. If things had been more difficult for him in the early days he could well have turned professional.

So, if I was guaranteed success I wouldn’t do anything because there would be no point. You can only appreciate success if you have failed and picked yourself up. I know that there will be readers of this post who disagree. If you do, give your views in the comments as I would love to look at things from a different perspective.