The road to success is by no means an easy road. Anyone that has attempted to build a business can tell you that there are a lot of difficult days, especially early on. Because none of us are born at the same starting point, there can be an imbalance of effort applied to reach certain accomplishments. For example, a person with a photographic memory may not have to study as hard as a person without a strong memory. A person who is very tall and naturally fast may have an easier time playing basketball or football versus a shorter, slower person. Therefore, he doesn’t have to try as hard. When we see those differences and we compare what they have to what we lack, we can feel very demoralized. We can start to think that there is no point in trying because someone else has an unfair advantage. In doing so, we have turned a legitimate reason into our excuse for failure.
I’m not going to deny that there are people out there who are born with certain privileges that other people may lack. I’m also not going to deny that those privileges can make the attainment of success much easier for them than others. However, what I do reject is the notion that one person’s privilege necessarily leads to another person’s struggle. Yet it is a very tempting thought to think. It is so tempting to simply explain away our failure as the result of a privilege we were not able to benefit from. It is tempting to do because it transfers responsibility away from us to someone or something else. However, when we do this, we actually keep ourselves from being able to achieve success. We have allowed the reason why someone else may have succeeded to become our excuse for why we can’t succeed.
Does being born to a wealthy family make starting a business easier than if you were born to a poor family? Does being born in America make it easier to accomplish the “American Dream” than if you immigrated here from a third-world country? Many might argue yes. I would answer, it depends. Coming from a wealthy family may mean having access to money to start a business; it is no guarantee of sustaining a business. Being born in America may mean that there is no language barrier to overcome; it does not mean that one will succeed over a determined immigrant. However, when we allow ourselves to fixate on the supposed privileges of others, we create the barrier that keeps us from succeeding. Someone might argue, “Well, how can you expect me to be able to succeed? I came from a poor family with few resources. That other person came from a wealthy family with an abundance of resources. That’s why that person is doing well and I’m not. I can’t help that I don’t have that person’s privilege”. Those may be very valid reasons for why a “privileged” person succeeded in an endeavor, but it does not help the person who is using that as their excuse for struggling. It is far easier to blame our failure on things outside of our control than to blame it on things within our control. Yet it is far more rewarding to focus on and take responsibility over things within our control than to fixate on things outside our control.
We all have our reasons for why certain things are more of a struggle for us than for others. The reasons may be valid. However, just because you have a valid reason does not mean it needs to become your excuse. So, as you go out today to take on the world and make something of yourself, don’t turn that reason into your excuse.