“Tough times never last, but tough people do.”---Robert H. Schuller
Life is full of challenges. Everyone faces his or her own
lot according to his or her own portion. The way you face your own challenges
is what determines your success or failure. Life favors only those who are able
to stay focused and determined even when the going gets tough.
It may interest you to know that:
John Bunyan was confined to a prison cell and sorely
punished for his religious beliefs yet he was able to write one of the finest
pieces of English literature “The
Pilgrim’s Progress” while in prison.
Professor Wole Soyinka wrote “The Man Died” while in solitary confinement in Nigerian prisons
during the civil war, punished for his views on the war.
Robert Burns was illiterate, abysmally poor and a drunkard
to the bargain. The world benefited immensely from his thoughts which he
clothed in fine poetry.
John Milton wrote “Paradise
Lost” when he was already blind.
Abraham Lincoln The 16th president of the United
States after failing many times in business and politics was so poor that he
had to borrow money to pay the train fare to attend his own inauguration as
president.
Beethoven one of the greatest music composers of all time
lost his hearing before composing some of the master-pieces for which he is
best remembered.
Thomas Edison was a partially-deaf school drop-out who
became one of the greatest inventors of all time.
Florence Nightingale very weak, very ill and in her hospital
bed managed to reorganize the hospitals in England.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United
States, suffering from infantile paralysis and in a wheel-chair managed to
become one of the greatest presidents the United States has ever had.
Demosthenes stammered badly but he managed to become a
renowned orator and the greatest orator in ancient Greece.
Napoleon Bonaparte overcame his lowly beginnings as a
diminutive Private in the French Army to become a conquering General annexing a
very large chunk of Europe.
Most people who managed to overcome big challenges in life somehow ended up great. There must therefore be some beneficial relationship between obstacles and success in life. This must have been the reason why Booker T. Washington argued that “you measure the size of the accomplishment by the obstacles you had to overcome to reach your goals.”
