The Self-Made Man

December 5, 2012

The Self-Made Man

Opportunity

The self-made man (male or female) is he who comes from unpromising circumstances, who is not born into priviledge or wealth, and yet by his own efforts, by pulling himself up by his bootstraps, manages to become a great success in life.

The Self-Made Woman

The idea of the self-made man is almost similar to the story that is often told of the American dream. His image, and the faith and willpower that comes with it, has driven several men and women out of their hometowns, countries and cities to settle on distant shores and lands, starting their lives all over from scratch, all hoping to turn a handful of beans into a vast fortune.

In the self-made man’s rise, it doesn’t matter independently who your parents are, where you are born, or how much education you acquire. It’s in your character and willingness to harness your strengths and build them while working to minimise the negative effects of your weaknesses, changing them to strengths, and doing everything else possible to be the best you can be at all you do.

More to Life

The African’s plight to become, and to rise to some level of significance, seems to carry much more difficulty because of Africa’s inherently carried backward status, and its real challenges brought about by slavery slave trade and colonisation. Even though the African may come from unfortunate beginning, he is still capable and can rise to great possibilitiess.

Atheletes

We draw inspiration from global examples of self-made men and review their several stories plus the stories of many of our own men and women who refused to be satisfied with their lot in life and instead chose a different, more extraordinary path for themselves. They set and defined a course for greatness and proceeded to work without rest until their goals became a reality, and in time they became or at least died without quitting.

“Though a man of this class need not claim to be a hero or to be worshiped as such, there is a genuine heroism in his struggle and something of sublimity and glory in his triumph. Every instance of such success is an example and help to humanity” – Frederick Douglas.

Success, if coveted and not built on fundamentals or maintained, comes crashing down leaving you in greater challenges than you were before the success arrived. It ultimately eats you up, chews you on the inside, destroys your relationships and everything in your path, until it kills you softly, violently, publicly.

Fredrick Douglass stressed the low origins of the self-made man, who has not inherited his social position by birth or other favourable circumstances, but who achieves everything without any outside assistance.

In his opinion, “Self-made men […] are the men who owe little or nothing to birth, relationship, friendly surroundings; to wealth inherited or to early approved means of education; who are what they are, without the aid of any of the favoring conditions by which other men usually rise in the world and achieve great results.”

Fredrick Douglas 1818-1895

Douglass did not believe in the “good luck theory”, which attributes success to chance and friendly circumstances. He believed that “opportunity is important but exertion is indispensable”. It is not luck that makes a man a self-made man, but considerable physical and mental effort. “There is nothing good, great or desirable […], that does not come by some kind of labor”.

An ambitious man will naturally, through hard work, climb the social ladder, whereas the unmotivated man will not improve his position: “the man who will get up will be helped up; and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down”. Applying this theory to the situation of the African-Americans, Douglass remarks: “Give the negro fair play and let him alone. If he lives, well. If he dies, equally well. If he cannot stand up, let him fall down.”

Necessity is what urges a man to achieve more. Moreover, favourable circumstances are counterproductive to one’s resolution to get ahead. Ease and luxury rather lead to helplessness and inactivity and an inactive man can never become a self-made man. “As a general rule, where circumstances do most for men there man will do least for himself; and where man does least, he himself is least. His doing makes or unmakes him.”

My theory of self-made men is, then, simply this; that they are men of work. Whether or not such men have acquired material, moral or intellectual excellence, honest labor faithfully, steadily and persistently pursued, is the best, if not the only, explanation of their success.

All human experience proves over and over again, that any success which comes through meanness, trickery, fraud and dishonour, is but emptiness and will only be a torment to its possessor.