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There is something beyond that hell that is going to be better, so don’t give up

Blessing Musariri Shelling The Nuts
My father was a great proponent of the “early to bed, early to rise” rule. Only one thing could keep him up late into the night; football. My father loved football — “the beautiful game”. He could stay up all night watching a game and he would be completely involved to the point where we all fall asleep listening to his cheers or loud groans of disappointment over missed goals and opportunities.

Sometimes I would be stopped on my way to and from the living room to watch a play and I would escape as soon as I could. I loved football when I was a child. I knew nothing about what was going on, but I loved going to the stadium with my father and various siblings. It was festive, it was colourful; my father’s friends would all come round to greet him and they would all have jolly conversations full of effusive comments and great camaraderie. I liked being around this energy, but I particularly liked the part when the ice-cream man came around.

Very early Monday morning, a good friend from Nigeria put me in mind of these memories when she WhatsApped me and during a point in the exchange asked, “Do people in Zimbabwe like football.” Knowing my friend and sensing what was coming I promptly replied, “Yes, they do, but I don’t.”

“I want to tell you a story that feeds into what we were discussing; the dry periods in between success and failure.”

“Manchester United used to win all finals until three years ago when their then coach Alex Ferguson retired.” This was the team my father supported by the way, so immediately I was interested.

“Since then they didn’t win anything; they went from unbeatable to every Tom Dick and Harry could defeat them, until Saturday when they won the FA Cup, the first thing they have won in three years.”

I had actually forgotten about Man U. I have been hearing the words Chelsea and Arsenal a lot on my Facebook newsfeed. I try by all means to avoid talk of football because, really, I have many other things I’d rather talk about, but there just seems no way to get away from it, even at five o’clock on Monday morning during a conversation about feeling like one is in limbo.

“What changed?” I asked my friend.

“They credit it to never giving up their team spirit in the face of obvious defeats and depression from past glories that now eluded them. For me I saw it as a leadership gap.”

At this point she sends a little illustration. It’s three simplistic figures standing one after the other on a slope that is inclining. Under it is written, “You are not a leader until you have produced another leader, who can produce another leader.” After it, she continued, “For the former coach Sir Alex Ferguson is to blame. He did brilliantly but had no succession plan. Bad job.”

I remember Sir Alex Ferguson, I also used to hear him being mentioned all the time. I didn’t even know he had left. He seemed something of an institution.

“Okay so who is leading the team now?” I asked, “and what did they do differently?”

“This time they fought,” she said, “Usually they go into the game and once the opponent scores they give up. On Saturday they played as the Manchester United we all knew before. Their captain became the coach.”

“What was the significance of the captain becoming the coach?” It’s very early in the morning, I am allowed to ask stupid questions.

“He didn’t become the coach officially, but during the match he was the inspiration. He kept shouting directions after they were a goal down.”

“The opponent scored first almost 15 minutes to the end of the game, but they didn’t give up and equalised immediately and then almost at the end of extra time, boom they scored again, securing their first major win in three years.” At this point, even I felt like cheering. Go Man U! (I don’t really care, but in memory of my father, I salute the win and the brave comeback.

“For champions that ruled for years, imagine they were winning that particular cup for the first time in 9 years, but in total they were winning for a record 12 times. No one has won the FA Cup in the United Kingdom as often as the Manchester United team.

This is the antecedent of the team we are talking about”. Now I’m sure if they are any wrong facts here, football fans will at this point be completely up in arms, but the point of the story is that it is about overcoming adversity and rising from a downward slump to emerge victorious again (and also, this is from a WhatsApp chat, not a journalistic endeavour for record-keeping purposes so we are allowed to make the story work for us).

“You can relate this story to life, can’t you?” she said. I agreed, that yes I saw the moral of the story; never give up even in the face of failure. It leads into the other sayings, “It’s not over till the fat lady sings.” This story lends itself well to personal struggle, particularly from the point of view of not giving up when things seem tough. It puts me in mind of the little story about a man going through some deeply troubled times and when he called out to someone in anguish saying, “I am going through hell,” he was told, “That’s no place to stop. Keep going.” In other words, there is something beyond that hell that is going to be better so don’t give up. This is all well and good.

What I can’t help noticing though is that in this story my friend told me, this is the story of a group of people working together as a team. Everyone played their part to the best of their ability and it appears that the captain was the glue that held everyone together and kept them motivated, inspiring them with his own desire to lead his team to greatness — “never say die”. How does this translate into society?

Who is leading and is anyone following? Are we building each other up to create something bigger than ourselves, or are we just each of us fighting for possession of the ball to show off what we can do? Are we creating and raising leaders for tomorrow? Will we be known as winners? A win for one is a win for all, as evidenced by the national pride taken in our athletes and other big achievers.

We take much joy in celebrating people who do well when representing our country, but what we do not realise is that we are the team that is supposed to be pulling together behind these people not only to cheer them on but to create a place that is great, to which they can return and be leaders.

What we don’t realise is that these people are succeeding in spite of the conditions in which they have to operate. We are all playing a part in the adversity they are facing, when we don’t do our part to make things better.

I’m not talking only about athletes, though, this is just the example I have used. There are many people in different fields and with different innovations, who are potential leaders who need the support and guidance of those who are leaders right now, so that they can be the leaders tomorrow and be the kind of leaders who know how to create more leaders in order to lead us, all of us to victory.

And what about our own personal victories? Each one of us has a duty to try by all means to be the best version of ourselves from day to day and this means rising above whatever demon you are facing in order to do your part for the team, but first, there must be a team.