50 | The Lion King
Feature
Tackling
your
challenges
By Simeon Aligbe
Y
es! Edison was afraid of the dark, yet he
overcame that obstacle in a big way
and invented the light bulb. The door to
opportunity swings on the hinges of adversity.
Problems are the price of progress.
The obstacles of life are intended to make us
better, not bitter. Adversity has advantages!
Have the attitude of Louisa May Alcott: “I am
not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to
sail my ship.” Don’t let your problems take the
lead. You take the lead.
Challenges make you stretch—they make
you go beyond the norm. Turning an obstacle
to your advantage is the first step towards
victory. Life is as uncertain as a grapefruit’s
squirt. Consider what Sydney Harris said,
“When I hear somebody say that ‘Life is hard’,
I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to
what?’”
We might as well face our problems. We can’t
run fast or far enough to get away from them
all. Rather, we should have the attitude of
Stan Musial, the famous Hall of Fame baseball
player. Commenting on how to handle a spit
ball, he said, “I’ll just hit the dry side of the
ball.” Charles Kettering said, “No one would
have crossed the ocean if he could have
gotten off the ship in the storm.”
The breakfast of champions is not cereal; it’s
obstacles.
Wisdom
From The Old
Crown-Corks
By Mpama Adamma C.
T
he quest for ‘jara’ (freebie) is a strong pull in
the psychology of man. In fact, I would state
the basic needs of man are: food, clothing,
shelter and jara.
I still have childhood memories of how carbonated
soft-drink companies advertised their promos,
promising many treasures. The secret was to just
look under the crown cork and Viola! You are rich.
The most common of the promised ‘jara’ was a
“free” drink. The lure of a free drink was so irresisti-
ble that me and other childhood ‘treasure hunters’
often embarked on our own treasure-hunt.
The smart idea was to hit the streets, in search of
crowns with the elusive free drink. However, my
Mom kept a tight leash on me, never allowing me
to prowl the streets in search of crown-corks. So
I always tried to devise new ways of outsmarting
her.
I targeted church occasions where soft drinks were
usually served as refreshment, even though my
mum kept constant watch, warning me sternly not
to go searching for crown-corks under any table.
She would think she had won until about two days
later, when doing the laundry, and you hear her
scream; “Chineke!’’ She just discovered several
crown-corks hidden in the back pocket of my skirt.
She had no clue how determined and innovative
I could be in search my those freebies. However,
the pleasure of outsmarting my mum was always
dampened by the discouragement that come
every time I pulled off the covering from under a
crown-cork and instead of the picture of a bottle
indicating that I had won a free drink, I saw the
annoying phrase, ‘Try Again’. It was disheartening
and a slap to my ingenuity.
Reward eventually came, though after several
tries. I won not just one, but several free drinks.
However, as I have become older and faced dif-
ficult challenges, I have come to realize how apt
the ‘Try Again’ phrase really is.
There may have been a project you have invested
so much time, efforts and resources into but have
achieved nothing; well, ‘Try Again’... You may have
been in a relationship that did not quite work out,
who says you cannot ‘Try Again’…
Let’s learn a lesson from the old crown-cork.
Don’t quit, God is not done with you yet. Trust Him
enough and ‘Try Again’.
