The 3S’s of Life and What They Mean to Society

Life can mean many things but at the end, life is a means to an inevitable end; a process characterized by varied events that needs to have a purpose for it to have real meaning. There are 3S's that I see as being central in this process namely Struggle, Success and Significance. Through these 3S’s, an individual's life can manifest its true meaning.

From a societal perspective, the significance of any success is dependent, not only on individual effort towards personal progress, but more importantly on how that individual effort impacts on the society and its sustenance. The argument here is that some forms of personal progress can easily be socially regressive.

But our innately selfish nature denies us the realization of this natural truth - societal significance. We are motivated by our desire to preserve or further our own interests first and foremost, often in the absence of any meaningful consideration for how that may ultimately impact on the lives of others.

Our successes in life, easily evidenced through achievements, are often preceded by a struggle; a struggle that can expose us to the worst of humanity; a struggle that can even reap us of our own humanity. Yet, how significant this struggle and its resulting successes are to a society is generally debatable.

Our selfish disposition tells us that having achieved something and attained some form of measurable success is, in effect, being socially significant. And as a result, for most of us, it is enough just to succeed to feel that we are significant from a social perspective. In as much as this may hold for the individual, it does not always hold from a social context.

I believe that significance comes when, even once successful, you continue to ‘support’ the struggle. The ‘struggle’ is the bedding ground of any society. Sustenance of a society requires that once successful, we consider ourselves privileged and not exceptional and use our success to the greater benefit of the society. Yet once most of us achieve any marked form of social distinction, we quickly forget (or ignore) the preceding struggle to an extent that we even ridicule and are shocked by the plight of those still in the struggle.

There is nothing more telling of this predicament right here at home in Tanzania than the general response to this year’s excessive and extensive form 4 exam failures. Shock and ridicule dominated the airwaves at the news of our young people’s performance debacle.

Yet, it’s evident that most of those in positions of note with the mandate to secure the country’s most critical resource, human capital, got an education of their own and without which their struggle may have had more compromising results. Worst of, they got educated at a time when education was, generally, of a higher quality but limited in supply. This should have given them sufficient evidence of the general impact that the lack of a quality education has through the life experiences of their less privileged peers.

We become, what I call, ‘victims of circumstantial supremacy’ when we are privileged by circumstance (white space advantage) but profess being exceptional and take a high ground on matters of far reaching social consequence.

If the future is truly a reflection of how the past takes care of the present, then those of us who have been privileged with any form of success as a result of our personal struggle and/or circumstance, have a moral obligation to keep supporting the struggle if we really want to be socially significant.

This article is dedicated to all the young people who failed this year’s exams.

I was fortunate enough to meet one such student at around the time I was composing this article and was amazed at the intelligence and sharpness of the individual; surely his potential to be of service to this nation cannot be limited to this event I thought/felt.

Clearly failure on this scale cannot and should not be bundled into one as there are many reasons that can lead to failure.

But irrespective of whether you failed or not, always bear in mind that in the absence of a purpose that represents your truth any event in life becomes a life determining event. Invest in identifying and defining your true purpose. Choose to be greater than this moment.