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Indeed he is a loser, whose today is not better than his yesterday (Al-Hadith)

(A Roadmap Towards Success)

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Life Hurdles

Life is incessant stream of multifaceted events filled with hurdles, limitations, detractors, threats, and challenges.

These events appear, now and then, to make us active or passive, static or dynamic, good or bad, happy or sad, wise or dull.

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Types of Hurdles

An individual face multiple hurdles during his life time.

Hurdles may be minor or major, small or great, transitory or unending, short-term or long-term, masked or unmasked, what may be the type; they need special attention and concentrated efforts for solution.

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Ultimate Effect of Hurdles

An appropriate response to hurdles make us effective and efficient in our socio-economic life.

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Hurdle Groups

We may categorize multiple hurdles into three groups:

1. Internal / Self Hurdles,

2. External / Interactive Hurdles, &

3. Institutional Hurdles.

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Internal / Self Hurdles

These hurdles come from our mindset and personal behavior. These are major source of any problem.

They arise due to some fallacy in our perceptual intelligence or false sensation in our emotional intelligence or wrong activity in our intentional intelligence.

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Examples (Internal Hurdles)

A minor procrastination / laziness by manager will cause comparatively major delay in his works by his workers; the concerned worker will show more lethargic and careless attitude to his tasks.

Similarly, a small mistake in timely guidance to some staff member may cause large wastages in resource utilization. A delay in 2 hours in timely guidance may demand 20 hours additional guidance by the manager.

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External/Interactive Hurdles

These hurdles are created due to interaction with other fellow members of society.

We face two types of people, those who like our achievements, and those who do not like our achievements due to some self interest.

There are three major self-interests that create such warring environment; we may call them chronic lusts, i.e., lust for wealth, lust for power, and lust for fame. Any socio-economic interaction with someone adorned by these lusts creates a series of hurdles, one after another.

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Examples (External Hurdles)

The major threat, in business life, comes from people who have strong lust for wealth. They utilize exploitative measures to gain material benefits. Their major maneuverings are:

1. To develop a monopoly in market, 2. To introduce rent–seeking or corruption,& 3. To make cartels. Any cooperation with the lusty people will make

one’s life full of losses/miseries. A competitive or resilient approach is indispensable to manage these lusty creatures.

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Institutional Hurdles

Society has three aspects, i.e., social, economic, and political. These aspects are combination of some institutions. Institutions, both small or big, are developed through collective wisdom and efforts, and established with due process of time. For example, judiciary, parliament, central bank, trade unions, business chambers, etc manifests collective wisdom and valuable assets of a society.

Individual efforts must face some institutional bottlenecks. These hurdles are generally good because it makes us rational and passionate in our social, economic, and political efforts.

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Examples (Institutional Hurdles)

In economic effort, an entrepreneur faces certain governmental rules & regulation - he pays taxes, he accommodates labor laws, he follows environmental policy, etc. There may be some outdated and ill-devised institutional rules & regulations, but the challenge to the authority of these rules must follow some acceptable modus operandi to dissolve.

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Hurdle Vs Limitation

Hurdle is an obstacle that can be overcome through struggle, sooner or later, while a limitation is some constraint imposed by nature and cannot be overcome through granted human powers. Aging, body structure, biological demand for food, water, sleep, heredity effects, natural laws are few examples of limitations.

Limitations are designed and imposed on us to fulfill Divine Scheme of creation and provide level playing field to all individuals or nation belongs to any region or lineage or color. On the other hand, hurdles are illusory, temporary, discouraging, and man-made.

Any misconception between limitation and hurdle may lead us towards deterministic mindset or wrong belief.

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Hurdle Vs Detractor

Detractors are problems that crop up unexpectedly and snatch our concentration. These may be mechanical, e.g., a problem in some equipment, power breakdowns, and trouble in vehicle, or these detractors may be social, e.g., unwanted visitors/males/phones.

The root cause of these detractors is improper maintenance of equipments, un-cleanliness, and time mismanagement.

They appear as urgent and disturb important tasks and planned movement.

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Solution (Internal Hurdles)

Any threat from self can be managed through personality development. These threats/hurdles can be grouped into two categories - theoretical and practical.

The solution to these problems is to develop positive mindset and wise working approach; the ultimate outcome of positive mindset and wisdom is fruitful results, i.e., success over internal hurdles.

The two major internal hurdles of an entrepreneur are – fear and grief. Fear pressurizes for inactivity and grief leads us towards some wrong activity. Fear is outcome of some expected future loses; while the grief is established due to some past failures.

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Solution (External Hurdles)

In interpersonal links, we have to adapt two distinctive approaches- cooperation and competition.

In competition, we are aggressive but just in our interactive behavior. On the other hand, during cooperation we are firm but follow win-win strategy in social interactions.

Cooperation is best if it brings synergic benefits, and competition is better if it makes someone dynamic.

Whatever may be the interactive strategy we should consider the other person as a human and not a devil or angel.

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Solution (Institutional Hurdles)

For Institutional hurdles, we must follow some institutional channels.

A civilized society has some institutions to tackle institutional hurdles, e.g., industry associations, business chambers, and judiciary. These channels are very effective to manage these bottlenecks. Any short-cut or rent-seeking will be converted into some bigger problem in future course of time.

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Super Natural Hurdles (or Desire-Devil Framework) – Islamic View

There exist, still, another type of hurdles that hamper or slows down our efforts. These are intangibles hurdles. The initiator and architect of these hurdles is DEVIL/SATAN.

Satan utilizes human desires/lusts for evil framework. An established desire-devil framework is root cause of multiple

problems of life such as Multiple Personality Disorders (MPD). For supernatural hurdles / desire-devil framework, we have to

utilize some unique strategic tools, neither available in managerial books nor taught in management centers. Islam has given the solution and imposed certain duties and obligations on his followers to counter these threats and challenges. Zikr (Remembrance of Allah), recitation of Darud Sharif, and charity to needy peoples of society are best and tested tools to counteract any hurdle or challenge posed by immaterial evil forces.