SUCCESS, HAPPINESS AND CORRUPTION.

SUCCESS, HAPPINESS CORRUPTION.

AND

“Success is beneficial if it’s deserved; it exalts the personality, it stimulates it. It has another virtue: it banishes the envy, uncurable venom in mediocre spirits. Succeeding on time, [sooner, at a young age], deservedly, is the most favorable sprinkle for any germ of moral superiority. Triumph is the balm of feelings, an efficient file against the roughness of character.

Success is the heart’s best lubricating element. Failure is its most urticating corrosive substance” .- Jose Ingenieros, author of “El Hombre Mediocre” (The Mediocre Man ).

“Fear is the platform to failure. Risk is the platform to success”.

Proverbs 21: 6: The getting of treasure with a false tongue [or with any other kind of fraudulent instrument, mechanism or resource], is an exhalation driven away, in the case of those seeking death.

Proverbs 20: 21: An inheritance is being got by greed, at first, but its own future will not be blessed.

The title and the above paragraph and biblical-proverbial passages referring to this article may seem strange, but actually there is a strong relationship between the notion of success and happiness with the corruption which shocks

Colombian [and much of Latin American] society on a daily basis.

What people associates to success offers them a sensation of happiness and joy, and the prior is linked to the values and principles in which they are founded from childhood to maturity and which they structure in the individuals their decision of acting distinguishing between good and evil, right and wrong, lawful and unlawful.

But at the same time, this personal view has been nurtured from what society as a whole has built as fundaments of collective life. Success can be associated to many positive and virtuous things such as academic achievements [good grades at school], a fruitful professional career, how to be a good example before the eyes of children and society, for the social and community labor, among others.

For a teacher, success can be educating a generation of good leaders; for a worker having raised his family without luxuries but without anguish; for a writer to see his novel published and very well received, for an artist to get the acclamation of the critic; for a mother to raise good children; for an engineer to see his majestic work; for a physician to see how many lives he has saved; for a policeman the citizenry’s recognition as a protector; for a pastor or priest to know that his spiritual guidance has

changed lives; for the grocery store owner to be friendly at the neighborhood, for a taxi driver to be preferred for his human quality and for a CEO entrepreneur the acknowledgement of his social commitment.

As you see, success is not necessarily founded with personal wealth – neither does it contrast that because financial stability certainly is a prerequisite for a good quality of living-. What complicates the situation is when in a society success is assimilated to the quick and easy wealth copied from the [criminal] paradigms of drug trafficking and indecent politics, and when happiness and joy are associated with the enjoyment of that [kind of] money regardless of the suffering of others, and the sacrifice of personal and family reputation. If being rich quicker through short cuts is the goal, then the option is to choose between crime, drug trafficking or access government positions in order to loot the Treasuries.

For a public official and for political leaders, success must be measured not only by what they can achieve for themselves, but also by their contribution for the collective wellbeing and by honoring the special privilege of being the depositors of public trust, confidence and mandate. In Buenaventura, Colombia’s main port city in the Southwest coast facing the Pacific Ocean, cases of corruption have painfully tripled at their highest rate, because it involves

resources to suit fundamental basic needs such as healthcare and education; because who are found involved are the Afro-Colombians themselves, and generally they are highly academically skilled and prepared people.

Those accused of acts of corruption have an individual responsibility, but the true problem in Colombia is the prevalence of the unlawful. Because of it, since several years ago, I have thought that in Buenaventura, we must address in rebuilding our society and that means that we must define our ideals, values and goals, and with these proposals we shall establish engaging bonds between the schools and the households, between culture and social cohesion so we can start bringing up a new generation of men and women with strong and solid foundations in values and ethical principles.

This type of proposals is usually a victim of short term trends and [of] the obsession of building a house with brick and concrete and always refuted with the argument that it takes so much time. It certainly takes time and it requires social commitment and policies from the State. But if this would have begun 20 years earlier, many of our yesterday’s children and today’s adults wouldn’t be walking in the path of the illegal.

*Original title in Spanish: EL EXITO, LA FELICIDAD Y LA CORRUPCION. Source: “EL PUERTO” WEEKLY NEWSPAPER FROM BUENAVENTURA, VALLE DEL CAUCA, COLOMBIA, SOUTH AMERICA. Author: MANUEL VALLECILLA GRANADOS Date: MAY 7, 2018.