"Lose the battle, Win the War" - Peace Hyde

Hello and welcome to a piece of peace. Your weekly dose of motivation and inspiration. Today I would like to share on the topic, “lose the battle but win the war”. I read somewhere, a quote by Donald Trump a couple of days ago, which said, “Sometimes by losing the battle, we find a new way to win the war”. I am often asked by a lot of my students (yes I still teach, I run a homework club for some amazing students) how to cope with failing exams. They usually have high demanding parents who expect nothing but 100% in all grades.

Understandably, they are paying high sums of money for tuition in private institutions and extra classes with the view of equipping their children with the tools to access Ivy League’s and top education institutions in the future. In short, there is no room for academic failure. In fact failing academically is tantamount to failing in life and for these young minds, that pressure can be quite exhaustive sometimes. I tell these students the same things I tell my girlfriends who are going through difficult times in their lives. Endure the down moments life throws at you, because once you go as low as you can, the only other way left is to go back up again. Failure is simply a process.

I have noticed a couple of things in my short years of existence. Firstly, as a race, we are obsessed with being number 1. So much so that we actively go out of our way to pull each other down, all in an effort to vie for that coveted position. My friend called me this morning, complaining about how badly her friends were treating her, now that she had turned her financial battles around. She has spent a long time being on the broke side of the success wall and all of a sudden, she has managed to turn things around to get herself a house and her dream car, a range rover.

In church, she overheard a couple of friends talking behind her back, accusing her of doing unscrupulous things to get her newfound wealth (is it just me, or does a weird amount of gossip sessions happen in church?). This really broke her heart, as the people who were talking about her, were really close friends. Sometimes you never truly know who your friends are until you hear what they say behind your back. Everybody is nice and lovely when you have something to offer them or something they need. Also, people are keen to support you when they know how far you can go.

Once you start showing them that their expectations or limitations, which they have placed over your life, is false and start overachieving, that is when they gang up to tear you down. If you are victim of such a situation today, do not be discouraged. It means you are on the right path. If your dream does not cause people to hate you, then you are simply not dreaming big enough. A sign of mediocrity and complacency is a situation where you have so many “friends” who all support you and are seemingly happy to be around you. The road to success is not meant to be fun. If it was, a lot more people will be walking that path as we speak.

There is a reason why only few people make it to the top. Sometimes you may feel like you are losing. Sometimes everything may go against you and the words or actions of people can bring you down and even cause you to lose things that you deserve to get. Do not worry. That lost battle is to show you how the enemy works so you are better prepared to win the war. Do not let the disappointments caused by other people break you down and keep you enslaved to misery. It is only there to teach you what you need to do next. Learn from that lost battle. The success road is not over yet and the lessons we pro actively learn about failure are designed to help us become overcomers in the future.

And remember always to be yourself, because everyone else is taken.

Much love,

Peace Hyde.