Be A Victor Not A Victim

Inner Compass

BIMBO CABIDOG

Have you had the feeling of being born loser? Do you always have that buffeting thought of never winning in any of life’s battles? Reverse the spell. Be a winner. How? Here are a dozen tips.

1.       Accept bad fortune. Don’t spend a life denying or futilely refusing it. When hard times set in, bravely come to terms with reality. Screaming that it can’t be happening won’t help.

2.       Navigate the turbulent straits, as you sail the calm seas: with calm in mind and willingness in heart. Don’t keep yourself to the easy route avoiding the hard one. Life goes from one crisis to another. Nobody said it’s going to be a joyride all the way. There’s no such thing as success with no hitches.

3.       Solve the problem. Because you grin and bear it, don’t say you aren’t going to do anything about it anymore. Nay, accepting misfortune and accepting it as an irreversible fact of life are two different attitudes towards the problem, though they seem alike.

4.       Never give the win. Sometimes evil and adversity are too overwhelming that we no longer see redemption. We think that the only recourse is to resign ourselves to them. Wrong option, it is the supreme design that they always don’t triumph. Don’t make an exemption by letting them.

5.       Hang on. Be still there when fortune reverses. So, there appears to be no way to beat it, no matter how you believe in Michael Jackson. Hang your hands up? Nope, let the bad situation hang itself. Nothing is permanent. No condition is forever. Don’t be missing when good luck arrives.

There were times when I and my family spent a whole day eating boiled bananas bummed on salt. Misery would be made worse by desperation and the painful thought of my folks going through it. But once accepted, we took a relaxing breath. Two days after, we were eating fried chicken.

6.       Plod on. Indeed, you accepted. But that is one thing. The other is forebear, don’t surrender. Yes, a crushing blow can’t be anything but a crushing blow. So you fell. Down on the floor, you can no longer fall. You can only rise. Get up!

7.       Dispel the fatalistic tendency to stay down, for you believe that’s your fate. Nope, to be down forever is neither your lot nor that of anyone. To be on one’s feet again after stumbling is.

Real life is not a boxing match. No referee is going to count you out for a knockout punch, because you didn’t beat the time. Collect yourself a while. Then stand up and slug.

8.       Don’t put it upon you. Don’t wallow in remorse for being a guilty bastard. Next to fatalism is blaming yourself for the fall: it’s the stupid sinful me. Oh yeah? Why add torment? All of us have it one time or another. It happens all the time. You can’t be the perfect exemption.

9.       Bank on faith, not on reason. Don’t be misled by a false sense of security, because you are pretty sure to be on the right track. It’s not true that wise judgment could shield you from bad luck. Certainty from taking all things into consideration is always vulnerable to being shamed by the least expected. Draw confidence from someone who knows more than you could ever know with all the doctorate degrees the world offers.

10.   Yield to no apprehension. Too much caution stifles action, and no action means no desired result. Danger is normal. The waters are still, because the wind is quiet. But when the harsh southwest monsoon blows, you get tossed again by the familiar turbulence that you’ve always known.

11.   Let not defeatist thought defeat you. Convincing yourself that you’re not going to win is no way to win. Even if setbacks keep coming, the mind doesn’t say you’ll lose. It only says you can lose. The fight is yours. Overcome!

12.   Finally, bear the brunt, but beat the odds. Carry the heavy load, but bring it to the finish line. Get hold of fate no matter how daunting and shape it to your desired prize.

Your failings are not other people’s fault. Don’t be helpless, or worse, be unable to do anything but cry over it. Be the victor, not the victim. The new day is not a promise, but the law of nature. Meet the rising of the sun with your own rise.