Forgotten Dairies
The Broken Pencil -By Richard Okunola
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal; It is the courage to continue that counts.”
Recently, I deeply researched about the reasons why we fail and the lessons we learn (or ought to have learnt) from such failures. In this light, I would like to share a personal experience.
In 2006, I partook in an international exam of which I failed woefully. I can remember I was in the junior class in college then. The effect of that exam’s result was so traumatic that I became completely abashed with everything around me. Friends whose assumptions is that I cannot pass the exam were elated because they didn’t pass too. We all failed! But then, I was astonished when I came about this broken pencil’s 
✏️ picture again last year. I remembered how the sight of the picture proffered a permanent solution to the 1,001 thoughts in my mind back then.
I grabbed my pen as I began to outpour my mind inside my notepad. Yet, I was unable to perceive the intended meaning of what exactly this BROKEN PEN mean in reality. In 2018, (after about 12 years) I found the meaning.
I believe every one of us in one way or the other (either athlete, waiter, bricklayer, worker, trader, professionals, actress, engineers etc.) must have made use of a pencil. In fact as for everyone that passed through the primary/nursery school level, I believe you must have used a pencil.
A pencil is one of the most affordable writing material and it is also most effective in drafting/sketching things because of its ability to be erased when we make mistake although this is not what I want to talk about. I will be talking about the broken pencil.
Once a pencil’s led is broken or damaged, it can be sharpened and then a new pencil head is created. This is just the same as what happens to a pencil when it is broken but, We feel depressed, we lose zeal to use such pencil, we feel irritated at it’s appearance and our hearts forms a kind of hatred towards it. Yes! We deserve to treat such pencil like that but then, have we sat down to look at the other side of our reactions? Have we thought about what’s next after the pencil is broken into 2 or more?
This is where I am heading to. The broken pencil brings an opportunity for you to start afresh. An opportunity to sharpen the two edges and share the pencil even with others. An opportunity for you to have a reserve in case one gets missing. An opportunity for such pencil to continue in it’s previous existence.
In conclusion, I deeply researched about the reasons why people fail (financially, academically, professionally etc) and the lessons I learnt can be summed as “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail” – Confucius i.e. I am sure that at one level or stage in our lives, we (may) encounter a very depressing moment of failure and the only thing that (should) count(s) at that moment is our ability to rise again and perform even more excellently. Failure is not the end.
