...The SaintsAwards Project...

Failure comes in phases, some as wasted years, wasted opportunities and failed attempts as disappointment varies, from mere failure to keep an expected appointment to dashed hopes and futility. At birth, desire makes the new born cry, a desire for attention and care, and when there is a failed attempt to meet with that desire the new born risk death, this is why expectant mothers makes a prior arrangement to the hospital before the baby comes forth.

The frustration of a man of dashed hopes, unmet desires and futile attempts knows no bound! And with time it leads to annihilation of the soul, mind and body協rom the deported young hustler from overseas, to the job-seeking grad, drug addicts attempting to kick the habit, to ex-convicts, the relevance seeking young man in a hurry to impress his society to childless couples, from the homeless tramp to the man at forty without any viable means of existence, life could not only be unfair but unrewarding and frustrating!

The average mind can survive any threats of life, from hunger, deprivation, joblessness and lost love. Even if stringed up in a thin line of hope, he will survive the worst feat of life! But once that hope is threatened it gives in to frustration and how that takes place is what I am going to briefly discuss.

As I write this piece, I was able to pull a list of many friends who had been beaten brains down by dashed hopes and expectation, how it all began is one sure way to get frustrated and be classed among failures, poverty and mediocre, folks whose end is going to be enmeshed in wretchedness, second rate individuals with low self esteem or non.

Eddy once had a job as a bank clerk on a school certificate, a privilege he had as a Straight A's high school graduate. Those days it was rewarding to work in the bank as it is till this date. As the turn out of university graduates without a job increases with the current trend of innovations sweeping across all major institutions, most corporate organizations have to rethink their employment scheme and the quality of staff that works with them.

Eddy was laid off, now he is in his late thirties, all he has been able to lay claim to as benefits from years of service in the banking industry was some perks of personal comfort, he has to search for another job and roamed the entire streets of most major cities without success, he did get some offers but far too below the quality of life he had earlier carved out, he could not cope so he resorted to societal influence and marriage' he thought was a near recognition of status symbol, he said; ?I think my only problem now is marriage, once I get married now, my problem is solved?he did got married to a working class lady that fits into his fantasy as the society had branded and had to fight his way through for the first two years of marriage to impress his supremacy and position in the marriage as a man.

That marriage is packed up on a very frustrating note.
Eddy couldn't still fit in into the current societal and employment system; he had to withdraw into himself, back to the village as a local school teacher and a drunk with a pitying diminishing profile.
The marriage never solved his problem but compounded his situation.

As we grew up, I saw many mates struggle to create an impression of importance, different ways. some rushed into a business oriented vocation, some rushed into schools and some dreamed on and I did remembered a sizable few that followed a very gradual and slow process that we often thought these ones will get no where in life!

Years gone behind, some graduated with no skill and were stranded in the job market, how fantastic life could be in the university that many forgot it was a mere prep'school to reality and not the usual ivory towers we had fantasized on but a place to avail yourself the opportunities to understand the complex society.

Some young men who ventured into other vocations relegated the importance of civil education at the sight of cash and thrived on false comfort' of some personal perks of life then later discovered that the society they were running to impress has widened beyond the size of their cash mentality' because if you got all that money and no average education, there is a limit you are going to hit and regrets of unlfillment' will begin to set in.

The reward to our insatiable quest of the comfort of life is so illusory that an immediate gain is blindfolding in everyway, we could hardly see the other side. We want to meet up with the demands of life because others has arrived there much too earlier than us.

This is why Eddy never thought of getting some further education and personal training while he worked in the bank but found pleasure in some personal acquisition of self complimentary values to impress his society, he quickly got married thinking that was the solution to his sudden state of confusion.

Many businesses failed and died a natural death because while it thrives, my dear friends were too occupied to learn a new trick, the sudden recognition gained from immediate members of the society and some friends as fulfilled entrepreneursvwere too deceptive and blindfolding that no definite investment was made other than a shallow pool of cash. A warped sense of self fulfillment did not give my business friends any opportunity to see the other side of life until there was a total collapse.

I walked into an old neighbor here in China from Africa squatting with a friend in the ghetto, he used to own chains of business and we ran errands for him as kids, he claimed to have handled close to a Million Dollars in cash but there he is in a drinking orgy of helpless young hustlers, I was moved to the diminishing pitiable sight and he certainly did recognized me! Everything is history he said, Man must keep struggling'

Many graduates might remain unemployable because the quest to get a paper certificate?with some sense of false recognition as a graduate never allowed them to acquire any special skill, I see young lawyers on the verge of frustration, engineers, architects, artist and social science graduates and lots more with a tall dream of getting a job in corporate organizations or traveling overseas as a means to an end and with nothing other than a head full of theories and wild dreams of fantasies that may never come to pass.

How do you get frustrated...?
In your mental state, recall friends and foes who has gotten there before you, they got all the cars, a good number of my mates are married now, I am of age and not near anything like marriage, the houses and all that good jobs, all that fleeting perks of life that I bet add some make up values, peace and happiness to life, think of all that achievement you're far from, consider your position in the affairs of life, how handicapped you have become even in solving the least individual problems of feeding, clothing and accommodation such as is common to all humans while you are still dependent, worry and eat less, remember all the people you owe and where you have made promises and failed at it, as much as you can, pay attention to all that jesting, gossiping and jive talking among colleagues and friends.

This month, a young man, an undergraduate in one of China's best universities in his middle twenties jumped off his room from the sixth floor, he had failed his final exams, this failure must have threatened some tall ambitions of this young man who might have expected so much from the society, he got frustrated and killed himself.

Think deep about the good past, how you had nursed up a high ambition of becoming something great of which you are far from today, remember old school mates who have arrived at somewhere of importance and you have not, remember how you used to be looked up to as a shinning example, consider how old you had grown and how long you have been at the particular position without much difference or any positive change, from Africa, to Asia, Europe and the Americas, remember how you were at the job market in Africa before you dared a giant stride overseas yet not one remarkable change is visible yet.

One young man once angrily reacted "I am ready to die with anyone for any slightest offence" I have suffered so much and I know where my mates are! There is a graphic picture of a failed suicide attempt by one supposedly frustrated young man forwarded to me through the email in which he blew his own face apart due to a wrong handling of the gun he used. The fact is you would have compounded your problems at the end of all this brain cracking'

But why do people get so frustrated and take their own lives?
Simple; see and compare yourself in other people's shadows, what they are and you are not, where they are and you wished to be there too, what they have and you don't have. Listen to your Mama upbraid you about how slow you are to grow in status and responsibilities.

Take all that phone calls and listen to uncles, aunties and family relation ask you what you doing in the city, how long you've been where you are and what your mates have done that you haven't done.

Go to church and listen to your pastor tells you only a miracle can change your situation and not time, fast and pray and get nothing and trust the fasting to change your situation and when it doesn't, listen to friends tell you what business is in vogue and how fast you can make million bucks overnight without much work and patience.
Avoid some positive people and try to associate with some class of people that look down on you, withdraw to yourself and let other people's voice overcome yours.

Accept every fault thrown at you and make more effort to get accepted by the society that cared less about who you are, where you come from and where you are, feel sorry for yourself for nothing other than sheer mistake that can take care of itself as time goes by.

See other people as more fortunate than you then very soon, a headache will creep in, a terrible headache, you will go to bed and you can't sleep, very soon you will have no appetite, you will become afraid of nothing but everything, sickness will set in, your soul will shrink and you begin to get older than your age and if you are lucky you might die before your time and the earth will thrive, the society will not change because of you, the people you were trying to please will simply bury you and go their different ways, then your loss will be definite!