A few weeks ago, I mindlessly applied for a writing award. I almost did it under duress and I did not pay much attention to it. I’ve always been a writer, using my words to express my thoughts, ideas, struggles and challenges. I’ve written poetry since my childhood, putting to words my complex and often hidden emotions. I struggled to make friends with my peers throughout my school days, but words offered me solace when I was too weird, too smart, too emotional, too distant or too intelligent for the people around me. If you read this blog, you know that I have often expressed myself fully, exposing my complications and feelings through words and pictures painted on paper for your pleasure and curiosity. So I did not really understand what the fuss was about this award. Why would I need anyone to tell me that I write well? I shot my shot anyway, reluctantly. And forgot about it.
It takes a lot of courage to shoot your shot. It requires you to believe in yourself in a way that most people don’t on a daily basis. You need a healthy dose of audacity to put yourself out in the open to be rejected or accepted. To be applauded or booed. I need you to understand that shooting your shot is not the business of fools. You need to be brave, optimistic and ready for rejection. Rejection is an ingredient that I’m learning to live with. It does not feel great to be shut down, turned away or rejected. I must prepare you for both the good and bad.
For you to be great, you must be ready for rejection and failure and the strange humility that being successful requires. Let’s begin with rejection and failure. These are two different things, rejection is not failure and failure is not rejection. Rejection just means that the people who you have presented yourself to, are not vibing with you. That does not equate to you being a failure. Failure must become a friend if you are going to do anything worthwhile in this life. Failure becomes a friend, when you look at it as redirection. Failure shows you that there is an alternative way of doing things. This is not always a bad thing. Sometimes this is a good thing. Failure pushes you to try again, to relook and rethink. Do not fear failure, befriend it. That’s important in shooting your shot. You will fail. Ok, you might fail. Ok, let me say that differently, it is highly likely that you will fail, but that is not the end of your story. Your story does not end at one failure, or two, or even ten failures. Your story ends when breathe finally leaves your body!
Now about humility. I like to call it the ”strange” humility because it is often perceived as the antithesis of success. See, being successful often leads to pride, if you are not careful. Pride is a dangerous poison. Once again, if you want to do anything worthwhile in this life, you must be prepared to be humble. You must work to be humble. Humility is the posture in which you remind yourself that there is always room for improvement. Humility reminds you that there are still new things to learn and new ways to remind yourself. It’s difficult to be humble when you have just succeeded but it is required for you to succeed again and again. Now, I am not saying that you should not be proud of yourself for succeeding and achieving your goals or winning, but you must remember to not base all of your worth and happiness on your success. Winning should not become an idol. Humility is a key ingredient in shooting your shot. Humility should not be associated with the shame of feeling like a failure. You must not be humbled only if you lose, or fail or get rejected. Humility must be a cloak you wear, whatever the outcome of shooting your shot. It preserves you.
So, shoot your shot. Put your cards on the table, try and make the most of the opportunities presented before you. After several weeks, I got a response and my application was rewarded with a nomination, however, I did not win the award. I tried, shot my shot, received a nomination, but did not win an award. This required me to practice humility because I did get my writing recognised, and I could have allowed it to get to my head. You could say that not winning the award humbled me, but I purposed to remain humble even before someone else won the award.
This whole experience has taught me to befriend failure and reframe what I think success is. I am enthusiastic about figuring out how to become aquainted with failure a little bit more. I am excited for future nominations, awards and situations that draw out audacity from me. Ultimately, I am not afraid to fail, I am afraid to cease creating. That, to me, would be the ultimate failure, one that I cannot allow to happen. I am created to create, this is what keeps my heart beating and so I will continue, whether I win awards or not.
#wisdomwednesdays
Njoki Mburu
13.07.23
Soliloquy 