The secret for our failures

THE SECRET FOR OUR FAILURES; SELF-SACRIFICE AS THE
MISSING INGREDIENT FOR PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENT
In a book called the Testament, written by John Grisham one
of the most celebrated thriller authors of modern times, where
he narrated an interesting story. What attracted my attention
was a lesson I extracted from the book. Although the story
depicts many American life styles that differ from our culture,
values and beliefs, but still deeply it sends a powerful lesson
to any curious mind.
Mr. TROY FELLAN was a business mogul with an estimated
net worth around dozen of billion dollars, having diverse
interest in trades of oil, mines, real estate and any business
that would attract more cash to his account. This attitude of
Mr. Troy was a common character amongst many wealthy
individuals in which money makes them greedier. interestingly
those attitudes upon comes with some negative
consequences upon the individuals; from too much
commitment leaving them with no personal time for their
families, alcoholism to induce rest and sleep, multiple
marriages for lustful desires and equally multiple divorces
from increasing frustrations and disappointments, all these
lead to broken homes in which the children grow without
proper parental care, moral discipline and love for humanity.
As in the case of Mr. Troy Fellan, it is a combination of all the
listed problems.
Mr. Troy has six ‘known’ children from three marriages. his
first wife married over forty years ago bored him three children
but they later separated years after the marriage, he later
promoted his office secretary to the rank of his wife with a
result of two children but the knot also broke later .lastly he
gazed upon a magazine beauty model (or more precisely from
Islamic and African perspective a prostitute) for her
appearance and attractive face, thinking peace is found in a
beautiful face. The marriage resulted in one baby boy and a
struggling relationship although not broken.
All the six children were raised singlehandedly by their
mothers at their different unknown environments with financial
support from Mr. Troy, it’s a known fact that discipline and
morality are upon missing in a broken family talk less of
growing up in some American neighborhoods in this 21
century. Mr. Troy pay it dearly, for all the children survived and
becomes adults both the males and the females, but the kind
of children that causes hypertension for their parents; they
became either dropped out of schools despite huge spending,
rascals, lavish and extravagant, hip-hop musicians, and drug
addicts.
Mr. Troy was charitable enough to arrange a five million
dollars gift token to each of the six children whenever they
reach their 21 birthday. Unfortunately all the money drifts
swiftly within few years without proper utilization. Most of
them given the advantage of living not far from Mr. Troy kept a
spirit of ‘my daddy have’ attitude, this help them to spend the
huge money among their friends and love ones without a
second thought. Three of the children (two from his first wife
and one from the second) have worked in one of Mr. Troy
organizations all in his effort to foster a sense of responsibility
in to their lives. The eldest male was consistently promoted to
different sensible positions but with every level leading to
tragic end causing near bankruptcy to the organization. This
accumulated frustrations forced Mr. Troy to give up on the
children’s future. As a matter of fact the children not only
squander his wealth but were thought to hate him by their
mothers.
Mr. Fellan was very unpredictable person, seeing his advanced
age he wrote a will (testament paper) in which he promised
after his death to divide his fortunes among his six children
and former wives. From the moment he publicly announced
his intention a change in the behavior of his family occurred,
instead of love he found increase hatred and boycott, instead
of hard work, their idleness sky rocketed believing that they
will soon became millionaires, this makes them to hope and
plan for the quick demise of their father. For this Mr. Troy
changed his mind, he secretly wrote a different will in a single
paper and few paragraphs.
One day Mr. Troy gather all his children, their families ,lawyers,
aides, journalist, and three doctors to ascertain his mental
capability to issue a will, he brings out a documents of papers
in which he proportioned most of his wealth to his six children
,and little to former aides and charity fund. He was so cunning
enough to appear sick that even the doctors and the children
believed he is dying within few days to come. You can imagine
the kind of excitation his children were at that very moment,
they were so unconcerned about his health but busy calling
their lawyers writing out list of things to buy where to go or
what to do right in front of him. Few minutes after the
departure of the family from the conference room, he called
out his confidant lawyer and two of his aides instructing them
to set a video recording of himself, carefully brings out a piece
of paper from his jacket reading it aloud that all his previous
wills are now cancelled including the very recent one, and that
now this paper contains his new will, it states that ‘I
proportioned some of my wealth to my six children enough to
pay up their debts and no more! While the remainder or
precisely over eleven billion dollars to a woman called Rachel
Lane’!
Who is Rachel lane?, who is this fortunate and lucky woman?
In the last paragraph of the will Mr. Troy writes that Rachel
lane was his daughter from a woman he had an affair with
almost three decades ago, though he had no clue of her
where about, except some pieces of information, he instructed
his lawyer to search for her. finally Mr. troy look in to the
camera and signed the paper, placed it on the desk in front of
him and jumped out of the window killing himself by suicide,
leaving behind chaos, conflict, and confusions that are beyond
the scope of my writes up.
Investigations later revealed that Rachel lane was an
illegitimate seventh child of Mr. Troy from a catholic and
discipline woman who worked in one of his organizations,
whom he forced to have an affair with and later abandon her
but was sure she is leading a descent life. Surely enough
Rachel Lane was later found in a very remote area in the
Pantanal region among the village Indians people of Brazil
volunteering as a missionary medical doctor with a certain
organization. Rachel Lane was living a very simple lifestyle in a
primitive area with no electricity, good water supply, air
conditions, flashy cars, who sacrifice her life to help unknown
primitive people living in a distant and unknown world for over
five years, helping them to fight infections and diseases,
suddenly and overnight became a heir to over eleven billion
dollars worth of a thriving business without the least
expectation, certainly the largest heir to a fortune in his
history. Rachel was unlike her siblings whom are expecting to
reap what they have not sown and at the end are left totally
disappointed and confused. Rachel has only one single secret
to her fortune or success; that she was busy serving the
humanity, she was busy sacrificing her life for the betterment
of others, therefore the creator of all beings took care of her
personal affairs and even placing her in a position she has
never dreamed to have achieved.
The message I was trying to send was a clear one, that self-
sacrifice to help others is the only key for personal
achievement as well as the societal growth. People who
sacrifice their lives in helping others always achieved a lasting
success without necessarily fighting for it. Serving others have
no limitation or boundaries from as little as making a single
person happy to having an impact upon the whole world, from
those responsible for teaching others, medical professionals,
engineers, security men, small businesses, and farmers. From
those in the market to those in offices, from people living in
villages to those living in cities, serving others among your
family or around people you have never met, it always pays to
serve others. It is evident today that majority of us prefer to
fulfill our desires first, or solve our own personal problem even
if that can violet the right of others. While the true heroes and
achievers always try to do things for sake of humanity first.
Had it been we are to instill this attitude of self-sacrifice in to
our personal lives, we would have complained less over our
bad education, debilitating healthcare services, dysfunctional
security system, and fragile economy. Imagine a society that a
teacher eagerly wanting to teach his students not for personal
interest, always on time to the classes. Imagine if we were a
society that its health personnel’s are always happily and ready
to assist a patient even without any personal relations,
imagine if we were a society in which its security men are
always willing to self sacrifice their lives to protect its citizens,
imagine if we were a society in which those entrusted with
leadership affairs are very prudent and willing to sacrifice for
the sake of the common masses. Imagine if we were a society
willing to sacrifice queue in the banks or a seat in commercial
vehicles when there is an elderly, a pregnant woman, a woman
with a baby or disabled person. The secret is that all those
countries we are always coveting have made this attitude
second to their nature, making them a healthy and enviable
society regardless of religious, racial, economic, or cultural
differences.
Finally its among the sayings of the prophet Muhd (SAW) that
‘wALLAHU fee aunil abdee… ’ (Allah is always in the support of
a person as long as that person support others). Hadith
We would continue.


SAIFULLAHI ATTAHIR WURNO wrote.
Saifullahiattahir93@gmail.