Success Is Optional

Success, like everything else, is optional.

A university professor says to her class of twenty, "Since I missed last week's class due to my illness, I am willing to run a class next week in our usual time (which I was not going to have otherwise) to replace it so you still have the same number of classes before the exam. We will cover material that will be on the exam but it is up to you - we will only have the class if most of you want to. How many people want to have the class?"

Most of the students voted to not have the class. This did not make sense to me. Classes in university are always optional, so it seemed weird to me that a professor was making it a point to say that the class would be optional.

One could argue that classes in elementary school and high school are optional too - there are just consequences that result when you miss them. In fact, isn't everything in life optional? Can anyone really force anyone to do any thing? And why would you want to?

What the professor really meant was whether or not she had to teach the class the following week. Students were already free to skip the class, but the question was whether there would be a class for the students who thought they would benefit and learn from attending the class for which they paid tuition money.

Most of the students said they would rather not have the class, even though they had paid for it. If given the option of having a class off or day off work, many people would opt for the class or the day off. Yet they still want to learn as much, or get marks as high, or make just as much money. Does this make sense?

Making positive choices will lead you to success. Remember, success is optional too.

Copyright Phree Shares Inc. 2006