Face Challenges Head-on: The Battle is not for the Self-effacing

In his book Ake, Wole Soyinka writes what his grandfather told him about dealing with bullies:
"Wherever you find yourself, don't run away from a fight. Your adversary will probably be bigger, he will trounce you the first time. Next time you meet him, challenge him again. He will beat you all over again. The third, time I promise you this, you will either defeat him or he will run away."

As we enter this New Year, let us brace ourselves for change, new challenges and new ways of dealing with these challenges and difficulties. Life is not for the faint-hearted but for those who have the heart of a lion.

Dr Maya Angelou once said: "You may encounter many defeats, but you must never be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter some defeats to know who you are. Forgive yourself – no one else will."

The good thing is that challenges never leave you where they find you. When you bare your muscle and brawn and fight through the mist of near-defeat, you emerge better than you started out. Furthermore, nothing good comes easy. In fact, faint heart never won fair lady!

Challenges come to mould us and make us strong. They come to help us focus even more intently on matters at hand.
My call to us today is to face challenges that come our way with sober minds and to realise that the battle is for the strong (not necessarily physical strength) and not for the fearful and self-effacing.