Everyone should have a best friend. Sometimes they are people we share everything with, sometimes they are our back up system - ones we fall back to in hard times and sometimes they are more or so our teachers. Let me introduce you to one of my best friends. Be aware though, he’s a hideous fellow, one you wouldn’t like to see before you tuck yourself in bed after a hard day at work. Body full of thorns and hands as strong as David and Goliath and he loves to pound these hands in my guts, this he says, he does to pass his time. Legs as big as a giraffe’s neck and as thick as an elephant’s leg and with them he enjoys standing on my pride. He has a great sense of humor, he laughs every time I make a mistake. I can always see him sitting in a corner smirking at me, pointing and laughing, enjoying while I slip and fall off those banana peels of my mistakes. He’s quite magical too, and no by that I don’t mean that he has a charismatic smile or a way with the ladies but that he likes to appear and disappear like Houdini. Loves to play hide and seek and emerges when I least expect him, sneaks up from behind and pushes me to the brink.
He is failure and he has been with me ever since I can remember. When I took my first steps as a baby and fell on my face flat up, when I gave my exams in school. Even when the first time I proposed to the pretty lass in my class and she turned me down. Failing those entrance exams, failing as an entrepreneur (not once but several times) my friend has been with me all these years through thick and thin, well mostly thin. And I admire him for this, you know why? Because it’s this friend of mine who encourages me to take steps I wouldn’t normally take, it’s this friend who has taught me the value of time and consistency again and again, it’s this friend who has taught me how to not lose myself in bright lights and he’s the only wise friend of mine who keeps my feet chained to the ground when I’ am too busy spreading my wings, testing the wind above me.
Over the years I have often asked him, why be so rude with me, I do acknowledge your existence and also the fact that you come to meet me only because you want to teach me but still, why, why be so difficult, why punch me so bad that it becomes difficult to stand again, why shake this ground I stand on with your presence every time I try to take the first step? To this he firmly replies “I know you would never forget me but the truth is you are not ripe yet, you still have to learn a lot and without me there is no learning and no living. I come here to make you realize that you are allowed to make mistakes as long as you are learning from them. I come here to teach you the same lessons I taught millions before you try again and next time do it better, this is not your 100% and that there’s always room for improvement”
A lot of times, I’ve thought about burning this bridge between us, but then I think he’s the only one standing with me at the end of the day. All the bruises and scars he left on me will be healed by time. His punches though hurt a lot also give me a taste of reality. His footprints on the dirt of my pride will sprout new flowers as time goes by but most importantly, when my mighty wings will grow to their full length and I break my chain, I’ll always remember to look down on my friend and remember the lessons he taught me for the life to come. After all I wouldn’t want to fail failures expectations and the lessons he crafted for me all these years.
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