Oh Sweet Success!

Even though suffering and pain has caused many of us to be resentful, I think that one of the most life-changing lesson we’ll ever learn is to be truly grateful for all that we’ve been through. Looking at my life, I can now see that it has been precisely those not so good circumstances that have made me what I am. Not that I am at my best, for I am making every effort to do much better, to be much better, and importantly, to be content. Not complacent, but content.

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne'er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host

Who took the flag to–day

Can tell the definition,

So clear, of victory,

As he, defeated, dying,

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Break, agonized and clear!

Contentment is a choice, albeit a tough one. Most times we fret over what we do not have, when we are supposed to learn to be appreciative for what we do have. One thing that hurts gratitude and fulfillment is familiarity. When we imagine that whatever we have is normal it is easy to think that everybody else has the same privileges. They don’t. Dickinson says it’s only those who have lost who truly know what a win means. Someone who has always been winning, wouldn’t be as moved by another win as would that who has failed again and again. For the former, it’s just an ongoing streak, for the latter, it would come as a source of great joy and excitement.

To understand the sweetness of nectar requires sorest need. It’s only the thirsty who are are refreshed. It’s only by being intentional are we able to see and notice those who have carried us on their shoulders. Those who have guided us on our path. We will never automatically appreciate the strides we are making until we step out of our success and see all that is going on in the world. Then we can see how things have actually played out for our favor. We may not have all we desire yet but there are people who would appreciate that which seems dispensable and useless to us. For us it is just a normal thing, other people, and many they are, would be exceedingly grateful for such a blessing. This in part is the argument Virginia Woolf advances in her remarkable essay On Being Ill when she explains how illness opens up the senses of its victim. I agree with her, for it is when I have been really sick that I have had to imagine, and appreciate, the blessedness of health. Think of it, all the people who have not known a day of wholesome health in their lives. All those battling chronic illnesses, some even incurable. It is them who know the blessedness of good health, not us, who are okay for the better part of our lives. Success is counted sweet by those who never succeed, and we cannot tell so clearly the sweetness of victory as that person who is lying down, defeated, vanquished. We do not really know the pains of the world, at least not yet. Neither do we know that so many people― afflicted, hurt, crushed― would gladly give up their lives just to have ours.

I am what I am because the gracious Lord that He is, He sent all the amazing people my way. People who have guided me, who have helped me, who have encouraged me, who have rebuked me, and who have challenged me. Once, on my twitter thread, I came across a quote by Charles Spurgeon, “had there been some circumstance better than that which we are in right now, God would have placed us in that circumstance.” For some, we could attribute the terrible state of their circumstances to complacency, due to their failure to be diligent in business, but as long as we are committed to excellence, every circumstance just happens to be a checkpoint towards the next season of our lives.

There’s so much we take for granted as long as it is within reach, but when it is taken from us, then we can now understand what we are without it. We will lose friends and our loved ones at some point, then the part they played in our sanity and well-being, though probably insignificant until then, will become glaringly apparent.

It could be difficult, but we do need to cultivate an attitude of gratitude for who we are, who we have, and what we have. It is important that we notice people, that we notice things. Thirst, real thirst could just make a man realize that water is not after all tasteless. Let’s be grateful for what we have, and stop being anxious for what we don’t.