Author's Note: This is a piece I wrote for the District Writing Assessment. Lately I had been very busy with sports and school, and I was starting to get stressed. So I decided the best thing to write about was a reminder to myself that you have to go through hardships before you achieve success.
I enjoy the going through hardships; not because it makes my body ach and sends painstaking thoughts to my head . But because I know that pain comes before success, and that if I can just endure the pain for a minute then I can relish in the success forever. Though we all just want to succeed in life we have to realized that we must fight for want we want, and these struggles are what makes the prize so much more treasured.
Many very famous people had to experience hardships before they succeeded. A very keen example is someone who's known for his bravery and dedication -- Abraham Lincoln. You may be familiar with how in the twenty years prior to Lincolns election as president he lost his job, lost his sweetheart, and failed in starting his own business. Along with that he was defeated for legislature, defeated for Speaker, defeated for nomination for Congress, defeated for Senate twice, and defeated for nomination for Vice President. But in 1860 Abraham Lincoln put all of that behind and was elected as President of the United States of America. Most people don't realize how much he suffered before he became a propionate idol to nation. They just look at all the successful things he's done and wish to be like him, but even Abraham Lincoln felt pain before success.
For me running is a great example of perseverance. I remember watching the marathon runners in the 2008 Olympics; how their muscles bulged out of their legs and how fast their legs moved. After seeing all the cameras and attention the winners got, I thought to myself that I should start running so that one day I could be a good runner. Though I had no intentions of going to Olympics, I thought it looked like fun. So the next day I went running with my sister. Little did I know that running wasn't half as easy as it looked. After about half mile I had to beg my sister to stop for an "emergency stretching break" because I had a horrendous side cramp. Once it went away we starting running again, and that was when I realized that running was really painful. Yet to this day I still run, not because it's as fun as thought it was, but because I know that the pain is only a reminder that someday day it will pay off.
An anonymous source once said "Success is failure that tried one more time." I think this means that we need to persevere through the failure and keep trying because success is only one step away. Then when we achieve the goal we can put all of our struggles, pains, and hardships behind us and focus on the success we just had. Therefore because of what we had to endure it will be ten times more worth it.
