The Role of Attitude and Aptitude in Success

To be successful in ones endeavors is something that every person strives for. We all have our goals, desires and dreams. Man in his multitude of shape size and color share a common drive to live in the best way he possibly can, no matter the harshness of his environment. Indeed, one’s environment moulds us to a great extent and forever shapes us into what we are.

How do we succeed? Why do we fail? What makes us continue living and striving? Questions asked countless times and answered by a myriad of ideas.  Everyone is born with a basketful of aptitude we usually call talents. This is our potential. Everyone also grows and develops and learns. Growing up we call it. Here begins our rise or fall. When we learn and begin to utilize our talents to take control of our environment, we begin weaving a particular set of attitudes. What works, we continue using. What does not, we strive to change. As we grow and become more experienced we learn more and we discover more aptitudes and thereby control our environment more. Thus we begin to say we are becoming more successful.

How do we succeed?  By learning to strive within a framework of positive attitudes; attitudes such as determination; which we learned as toddlers when we got up after each tumble.  Fortitude; which we discovered as we learned to wipe our tears and continue after each hurt. Courage; which we acquired as we learned to cope with the hazards of our environment, and sociability; which we begin to acquire as soon as we begin to talk and communicate with others. Such attitudes ensure that as we strive to make our dreams come true and as we push to make our goals ever nearer, we do so without losing our sense of worth. The seed of success lie within and what we call maturing is the ever growing ability to look inside and find our answers within our self. Self knowledge is the fuel that feeds positive attitudes.

Why do we fail? It is so very easy to weave a net of attitudes that lead to failure. This is so because for every positive, there is a negative. Fortitude carried to excess leads to a conviction that one exists only in suffering. Courage can lead to foolhardiness and self knowledge can be infected by hubris, and to rigidity that kills creativity.

Living successfully does not really mean attaining all material comforts possible. While the pursuit of wealth is a given in our world, a necessity and an adjunct to survival, it is not the ultimate end. Life should be more than that. In the tendency to forget everything else for the sake of gathering wealth lie the seeds of failure.