I have a lot of reasons to believe that quitting is a vital part of many African cultures. Most Africans believe that if you try something once or twice and there is no breakthrough, you have to give up and try another thing.
While persistence remains one of the most important ingredients of success in anything worth celebrating, it seems many Africans have a different opinion – quit when it is not working; it means it is not meant for you. This belief has kept a lot of people in mediocrity more than any other causes combined.
If Thomas Edison were an African living in Africa, he would not have invented the talking machine. After trying two or three times without success, he would have been advised to see his pastor who will give him career counseling to change his line of job because persistence failure was God’s way of telling him it was not his way.
Perhaps many Edisons have been discouraged in Africa because their successes did not come as quickly as they wanted them. Many Africans have not been properly educated about the power of persistence; their faith in the power of witches and wizards supersedes their desires to succeed at their chosen callings, hence they cannot persist.
When you keep trying a thing that seems not working but you refuse to give up on it, people around you believe that you are lazy. Worse still, many of them believe that you are bewitched.
However, both witches and wizards cannot stop a person that is determined to achieve success in a particular calling at all costs.
Men like Thomas Edison succeeded in America not because there were no witches, he did because his persistence outwits them – they must have run out of ideas on how to stop him from achieving his goals. Surely, no witch or wizard will go after the same person up to 10, 000 times. These guys are humans too and they also need the persistence to be able to do that.
In his book THINK & GROW RICH, Napoleon said “White way will give any beggar a cup of coffee and a sandwich, but demands persistence from those who go after the big stakes.” This means that you want the big stakes in life, you must learn to add persistence to your character.
Whatever may be your calling, it is almost certain that your breakthrough will not come as quickly as you want it, but if you do not give up, it will come. Except you wish to extend the already achieved success of your ancestors, you need a large dosage of persistence to succeed in any calling that you choose.
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