EDUCATIONAL

COMPLACENCY

Hmm. The word complacent carries a whole lot of self-confident and self-believe,

A feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one's achievements. There's a saying that goes a little something like this. One of the most dangerous times in a man (or woman) life is when he has just achieved a worthwhile goal. After achieving that goal, he should then immediately replace it with another worthwhile goal. Otherwise, he'll start drifting with no direction and the attitude of "I did it. Now, what?" starts to form and he becomes like a ship lost at sea.

This feeling is like no other, it's just the feeling that nothing can go wrong. And you know like you see in the movies and as experienced everything and anything could go wrong at any time. I have a story about complacency that I am going to share....

The day was a Saturday, the sunshine was mild, but one could hardly

face it without a pair of sunglasses....(This was not the cause of my school team losing)...

the big event was a novelty match between Hosanna high school (HHS) and Yintab in't college... (My school is HHS)...it was a home game for us so it was played on my school football field. The football match has been the talk of the schools around the city before the "D" day, can't really remember it was around 20011/2012...(yeah it has been long, I can't just forget the match)...mainly because I did not participate in it, because I was new at the school at that time. I knew we had the confidence and quality to win the match effortlessly and others who had watched the two teams played were unanimous in tipping my school to win the match. Mainly because of our discipline and cohesive game play, and we were psychologically balanced.

The match kicked off at exactly 11:00 am the two teams displayed football artistry and entertained spectators with the numbers of aerial battles with heads. One of my senior named "Dayo" stole the show when it performed the famous 360 move and a rainbow flick is a space of seconds people clapped and hailed him. The spectators witnessed series of anxious moments. The match ended goalless at the end of first-half of extra time, minutes into the second half of extra time, a player of HHS ...(my schools)... willfully brought down a yintab player at our 18yard box. The referee immediately awarded a penalty to our opponent. It was taken brilliantly, the ball sank into the left side corner of the net, the goalkeeper dived to the same direction but was unable to reach the ball.

Hosanna boy fought desperately to equalise coming close to hitting the bar twice. We lost the match, because of our overconfident and excessive dribbling. Our school has learnt that complacency and rough tackling should be shunned in future matches. Well I know some heartbreaking defeat like this cannot stop us from being complacent, this is just the peak of the ice burg of my experience with complacency.

If you become complacent, it's like stashing your money under the mattress only to have inflation eat it away. Put your money where it yields some sort of interest so it at least matches the rate of inflation or invests it in a vehicle for greater returns. Remember, YOU, you are the greatest investment vehicle in the world. No stock, bond, or mutual fund can compare. Invest in yourself. If you're complacent, you accrue no interest. There is no return. In fact, your overall value may decline.

Complacency encourages the absolute minimum. Why grow when things are going well? Why push the envelope when I don't have to? Why bring elements in that might upset the balance? If you do the absolute minimum and your job is on the chopping block, guess what? More likely than not, you're out of a job. Did you take the time to learn new skills? Make new contacts? Suggest new improvements? Doing the bare minimum won't help in getting another job because you're on the same level as the time you applied for your old one.