Recently a friend shared an interesting fact with me. Lions only succeed in a quarter of their hunting efforts, half the eggs of fish are eaten, half of the baby bears die before puberty and most of the seeds of trees are eaten by birds. And yet they don’t despair in their pursuit, not out of wanting more but having instinctively accepted the law of the universe. There is much for us to learn in this.

Not every effort will be successful. But an effort that is not successful is not a failure either. It is part of the larger design of things that we may have to go through several attempts before achieving our goal. Accepting this principle removes the expectations we build and the subconscious pressure we put on ourselves.

No matter how many efforts bear no fruit, we need to be relentless in our pursuit. Our tenacity comes from our faith and understanding of life.

Sometimes the wait may seem endless and the journey long and hard before we can see our goal on the horizon. Believing in the fact that as long as we keep moving, we will reach our goal, builds our resilience. And resilience dispels despair.

When we visit a historical or religious place having several steps leading up to it, we take each step with enthusiasm even though it is only the last step that actually lands us ‘success’. We enjoy each step because we are certain where the steps are taking us. Sometimes we stop enjoying life, not because of the steps we need to take, but we are not certain whether we will achieve what we want.

But life doesn’t always show us the certainty we desire, it gives us steps to climb to build our faith, understanding, and resilience. When we accept the fact that some efforts will not give us results, but are nevertheless important steps in our climb towards our temple of success, we will look back and realise that every step was necessary and no effort was a wasted effort.