I once heard the story of a farmer who bought a large piece of land; he had intentions of using it for farming. He was optimistic and enthusiastic about the farm. He had all the knowledge, equipment and everything needed to reap bountiful harvest. In the first year he planted maize, millet, cowpea and yams but sadly during harvest season he reaped nothing. The little that did grow was nothing to write home about. Determined to not be put down he planted again in the next planting season, however, the same happened again. He planted again and again, reviewing his methods and improving them yet no yield.

See also: why not try again

For so long this happened, his debt continued to rise causing him to living from hand to mouth or in better words from “land to mouth”. One day he was approached by some men who claimed to work for a mining company. He ran away initially thinking they were the bank coming to seize the land as collateral, however, they were looking for a land to start a new mining operation in the region and his land had the largest deposit of needed minerals. They offered to buy his land for ten times the original price he got it and it covered all the profits he would have made for years but didn’t. Yearly royalties would be paid to him, his family and their generations for life. He sold the land to them and got another land, this time he did the survey and found a land that was good for farming. He started the new farm on this new land backed with all the knowledge he gained in his last experiences and did a lot better, becoming really successful in his endeavours.

Wow that’s huge, mostly unbelievable right? Well there’s a means to an end here. I would like to point out what I learnt from this story; I would like to hear what you feel you took away from the illustration. Here’s the little I learnt:

  • It’s good to persevere: It might seem really hard to go on but try to persevere and someday you may come across your day of glory. I wonder the kind of pain he would have felt to know he was sitting on a gold mine only after he had sold the land at a loss.
  • Your location matters a lot: ignoring the amazing remuneration he got and the benefits, that particular land didn’t agree with his plans. The location of a man can decide his allocation. Your location has to agree with your destiny for you to succeed. Imagine you are in Lagos and your destiny is for you to succeed in Ibadan or you are in New York and your destiny is to succeed in Kansas. Sorry to say but you might find it hard to make it. We have to pray to God to reveal to us the location for our destiny.
  • Learn from your mistakes/failures: surely no one is perfect, no one is above mistakes. In our everyday lives we are bound to make mistakes, it isn’t our mistakes however that makes us but how we recover from them. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”- Albert Einstein. If you try a way and you fail, look over your failures, and figure out why and how you went wrong then develop ways around your previous mistakes. That way you don’t just keep repeating the same thing because that is just insanity.

See also: Tried by fire

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Written by Miller Oluwasesan.
Edited by Sobanjo Olusegun

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