Hard Work Pays off

Hard Work Pays Off

Part I

A mixed feeling of excitement and fright overpower me as I step up to the starting block. I turn to my left. Then I slowly rotate my head to my right. All I see are bulky and muscular middle schoolers who are determined to win. The three-hundred-meter-hurdles is what I've been practicing the entire track season. Failing to win is one thing I will not tolerate. What makes matters worse is that in the same heat is my teammate Jaren Aunan. He is a year older, but I wouldn't be surprised if people mistake him as a college student. Although he's on my team, I still wanted to beat this wunderkind. After all, I have been practicing for this event far more than him, and I deserved to take this win.

"Good Luck," he yells to me with a thumbs-up, moments before the gun sounds. I reply with a, "You too!" even though I didn't mean it in the slightest bit.

"On your mark," the judge points his gun high to the sky. My heart is racing. "Gotta win. Gotta win. Gotta win," I say to myself. The copious hours that I've put into this event must pay off. I am so concentrated that I couldn't hear the "get set." Then suddenly, boom, the gun goes off and I take off. I jump over each hurdle with the correct form that I've been drilled into my head. I am feeling confident until the final strip. I see Jaren on my left, accelerating faster than ever. There is only 10-15 meters left of the race, yet Jaren accelerates, and I decelerate. An unending line of curse words that I couldn't possibly say out loud, fill my head as I cross the finish line. I immediately drop to the floor, knowing that I'd just given my all. I am too tired to even speak, but anger quickly fills my conscience. I could not find it in me to answer the ultimate question: Why did I loose? This race was one that I have been training for. Practice after practice, I would try to do anything in my power to improve, but my work had not paid off. I am really confused on why I didn't win when I clearly trained harder and longer than Jaren did all season. Then, a question popped into my mind: What exactly leads to success?

Part II

As I think more about my topic, many things have entered my mind. When I watch professional athletes, musicians, and artists, I can see the distinct difference with below professional talents around the world. Part of the reason why the professionals are professionals is because of their undeniable will to work harder than others. To be where they're at, they must have passion for what they do, and they must want it more than anyone. Their desire is what pushes them, and motivates them to work harder than the average human being. However, as stated before, this determination is not the entire story.

There is no doubt in my mind that practice is necessary when you are trying to achieve mastery in your passion. However, other things are flagrantly necessary in trying to reach success, and I'm not quite sure what that is. I think practice is really vital when it comes to success. To gain talent, I feel like just doing what you want to be successful at will help you get there. With said that, I think that motivation drives you to practice. By putting these two things together, I think that motivation and passion drives you to practice. Without either of the two, I feel like success can never be gained.

In my life, I have reached success in different ways, but these successes are not major, and have not had an impact on my life significantly. In saying this, I want to know, does success have to be something that must have an impact on ones life? This topic is one that has many questions to, along with answers. What is the most important factor when trying to reach success? Is talent and success related? Is it possible to be successful by chance? I ponder many questions that I lack the answers to.

Part III

Talent is something that can't be obtained in a day. It takes years and years of practice to reach mastery. This idea of talent could not leave my head. My nosey little face could not take it anymore, as I packed my bags, and surfed the web. I was flabbergasted when I discovered that there was not too much information on my topic. I was so excited and passionate about my topic, and I must admit, I was a tiny bit upset when I came upon this absence of information. So, I decided to head down to the library to see if I can seek some substantial information down there, and surprisingly, I did! So I found the answers to my questions first, down in the library. This shows that persistence in work gets you what you want!

People often never hear about others who have reached success by chance, but if you look deeply, chance can be a non-factor in one's major successes in life. Of course, this is not the whole story. It is never the whole story, but luck guides people and points people to the right direction in order to reach success. According to Malcolm Gladwell's research, of the seventy-five richest people in the history of the world, "fourteen are Americans born within nine years of one another in the mid-nineteenth century" (Gladwell 61). There must be some sort of explanation for this. As I read further on, I found out that this was so because in the 1860s through the 1870s, the American Economy was going through a massive revolution. This time period was a big jump for the American Economy. It was when the people stopped going by the rules that the traditional economy had, and remade new ones. What does this have to do with the quote have to do with luck? Well, this has everything to do with luck. These statistics show that the span that these men were born in, helped them to become some of the richest people in history. Because the American Economy was going through such an extraordinary revolution, these men could start their own businesses. Begin companies with such attributes that were never even thought of before. The catch is, if they were born a bit earlier, it would have been too late. They would have been too old to give up their above average jobs. They would not risk to start their own business when they already had families and steady jobs. On the contrary, if they were too young, then they would not have enough experience in this field; possibly too immature to begin their own company. This group of people were extremely lucky to be born when they were, because this "nine-year window ... was just perfect for seeing the potential that the future held" (Gladwell 62). Gladwell was just trying to imply people who were born during this nine-year window would have the highest chance of