Behind The Self Made Person

This year I have been reflecting on many issues and one of them has been to “get up again after falling”.

Is there anybody in this world who has not failed in anything? Now I do not want to take a survey to say that everyone fails at something at some point but lets face it some people fail at more things than others (for many reasons). As so many people on social media like to call themselves “blessed” as a tool to show off their “success”. But what exactly do they really mean when they say they are “blessed”? That life has been pretty easy for them or they got success without trying much? Maybe. But what about the rest of the us who do not feel like they are “blessed”? Trust me, most of us (the other 99%) do not feel that blessed all the time (my fiance passed away on May 22nd due to a car-accident, so go figure).

Now I am not going to spend my time here talking about those born in fortune (the Hiltons, Trumps etc) i.e. who are “born blessed” but more about the self made person feeling blessed. Now lets break down the words: SELF-MADE-PERSON. Not trying to offend atheists but those of us who believe in some kind of higher power will say to the self-made-person:“first of all God made you” and then at a certain age you became successful WITHOUT anybody’s help? Wow. Please tell me you you knew about what to do in every step of your adult life without any guidance or financial help or any good friend or relative or a stranger coming forward to help you or believing in your talent? Dude (or girl) you are a God (or Goddess) obviously”! I am being funny here (or being sarcastic) I should say. But you get the picture.

Now lets give an example. You see a very successful man or woman in his early 30s and he calls himself a self-made man, rightfully so..if he is not born rich (or did not inherit any money from a rich relative). But lets dig deeper. Is he married? So his wife must be taking care of his kids while he is working hard for his career. Oh he is single? Great. Who is taking care of his aging parents? His sister? That poor woman never got credit for her contribution in his success. He has no parents or family. Ok. He must have some great people outside his immediate family who guided him in the right direction or gave him a chance at his first real job or business-plan. Or maybe he just came across a bunch of good people (or a great friend or colleague) who helped him when he needed them. Yes we all need help in someway.

Yes, the self-made person is someone who is blessed to have some kind of support system behind him at some point in his life (or still has one). But yes he can call himself self-made because he was brave enough to ask for help or look for help even if he got disappointed or ridiculed or betrayed many times.

He had faith in his own talent and so did some other people, maybe one person or a group of people. Life is never easy for the “not-born-blessed” person. Some people get more obstacles than others. But we gotta try right ? Is not that what making ourselves is all about?

My new quote for the day:

The self-made person is someone who shamelessly asks people to teach him how to fish and then asks a good friend to lend a fishing rod so he can fish with his new skills and can buy his own rod in the future to catch a lot of fish.