Achievements

No no no, this isn't going to be a post about my achievements in life. And frankly, I have not enough of such to brag about. Not one, I don't think so.

While I was waiting for my Facebook photo album to be completely uploaded, I caught sight of this book sitting on my bedside table, which I rarely gave a second look before. My negligence of this book may have been brought about by my perception of it as too common and nothing-new-to-bring type. It's 'cause I've held other books of this kind before, especially in High School -- with all those mini library campaign and stuff, this was kinda usual to my eyes. It's the....... Chicken Soup for the Soul. Maybe it's the same for you, too!

What I have right now is the 5th Portion. I read a couple of stories, each of which I randomly chose. I didn't expect to be so moved by the stories I stumbled upon just a few minutes ago that I'm now willing to post a blog about it. Among the selections that touched me so, was this. Posted herewith are the exact, original words I read on pages 301-202. These are not mine okay. Puh-leaze, plagiarism is not the way I roll.

Consider This

All great achievements require time. -David Joseph Schwartz

Consider this:

Robert Frost, one of the greatest poets that America has produced, labored for twenty years without fame or success. He was thirty-nine years old before he sold a single volume of poetry. Today his poems have been published in some twenty-two languages and he won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry four times.

Albert Einstein, often said to be the smartest person who has ever lived, is quoted as saying, "I think for months and years. Ninety-nine times the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right."

By the end of World War II, prominent CBS newsman William Shirer had decided that he wanted to write professionally. During the next twelve years he was consumed with his writing. Unfortunately, his book rarely sold, and he often had difficulty feeding his family. Out of this period, however, came a manuscript that was 1,200 pages long. Everyone --- his agent, his editor, his publisher, his friends --- told him it would never sell because of its length. And when Shirer finally did get it published, it was priced at ten dollars, the most expensive book of its time. No on expected it to be of any interest except to scholars. But The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich made publishing history. Its first printing sold out completely on the first day. Even today it remains the all-time biggest seller in the history of the Book-of-the-Month Club.

When Luciano Pavarotti graduated from college, he was unsure of whether he should become a teacher or a professional singer. His father told him, "Luciano, if you try to sit in two chairs, you will fall between them. You must choose one chair." Pavarotti chose singing. It took seven more years of study and frustration before he made his first professional appearance, and it took another seven years before he reached the Metropolitan Opera. But he had chosen his chair and become successful.

When Enrico Caruso, the great Italian tenor, took his first voice lesson, the instructor pronounced him hopeless. He said his voice sounded like wind whistling through a window.

Walt Disney was once fired by a newspaper editor for lack of imagination. Disney recalled his early days of failure: "When I was nearly twenty-one years old I went broke for the first time. I slept on cushions from an old sofa and ate cold beans out of a can."

Scottie Pippen, who won four NBA championship rings and two Olympic gold medals, received no athletic scholarship from any university and originally made his small college basketball team as the basketball manager.

Gregor Mendel, the Austrian botanist whose experiments with peas originated the modern science of genetics, never even succeeded in passing the examination to become a high school science teacher. He failed Biology.

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 The actual book, you see:

Before I go on, I'd like to make it clear, again, that the selection above in italicized form, is an original content from the 5th Portion of Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. The photos that came along were from Google Images.

These people (in the selection) gave me a renewed sense of determination in my goals in life. Just because I'm aware that with so young an age and already I've messed up quite greatly, doesn't mean it's the end of me. It's as simple as that. While I may not be destined to be as famous as these people with amazing achievement stories are, I am hoping that I could do as much as they have... Leaving a great mark in this world.