Pressure is the incubator of progress

Newton’s first law of motion which is also called the law of inertia states that ‘‘If a body is at rest or moving at a constant speed in a straight line, it will remain at rest or keep moving in a straight line unless it is acted upon by a force’’.

Nobody wants to be under pressure, to be stressed, to be frustrated, to be confused or to be destabilized, etc but like any object at rest, we remain the same; in other words unchanged until we are pushed around by the pressure of life. We turn to play it safe, stay away from pressure, have the routine life we have become accustomed to and even try to discourage other from trying out new things or following their dreams with words like, ‘‘play it safe, you should be happy with what you have and you dream too big’’.

But the desires we admire will never be acquired if we are not destabilised by an external pressure to move from our state into our estate. We love the beautiful place in life called ‘‘comfort zone’’ but as beautiful as it looks, nothing ever grows there.

The eagle when teaching the eaglets how to fly pushes them out of their comfortable nest to fall off and as it falls off, it tries to open its wings and fly but is unable at the beginning. The mother eagle goes to the rescue of the eaglet and the process is repeated until the eaglet learns how to fly on its own. As it flies it begins to appreciate the joy of soaring in the sky and looking down at the beauty of its environment. In like manner, the challenges that we go through are meant to build us up to gain the capacity to do what we want to do in life.

Years ago I asked my Sunday school teacher a question of which he gave me a vague answer. The question was, ‘‘why did God placed the devil on earth but not in isolation on a different planet where he won’t have access to the human race’’. Now I realise the answer to that question may be because of man’s need of opposition from the devil as an external force to help in building capacity.

When we all look back into our lives, It was only during those difficult moments that we developed strength, it was during the moment we lacked so much that we dreamed of having financial freedom, etc. As diamonds are formed as a result of the pressure it goes through so should we also embrace challenges in order to build capacity for our next assignment. We must acknowledge that pressure, like the refiner’s fire is the incubator of progress.

Jeremiah Mensah Appiah (0245893786 )

Email- – jeremiah.appiah25@gmail.com