Don’t You Ever Give Up

Questions

How many of you believe the family you came from offers you no particular advantage that would put you ahead of your peers, and that you would say whatever success you are gonna get you will have to fight for it yourself?

How many of you believe that your family background would render you some advantages in elevating your ability to achieve success with better ease?

I was watching a video earlier and came across a clip that talks about poor families and their success. The clip started off by saying individuals from not well to do families faced enormous challenges to score big in their life. I wanted to share and ask if you guys think there is any truth in this?

The story about my dad

I didn’t come from a well-to-do family, both my parents had never gone to school and yet they live their life educating their children how important it was for us to go to school. My dad doesn’t speak a word of English, couldn’t help me with my school work yet he never abandon his duty as a father. He finds his own ways to educate his son in areas that school doesn’t cover. He led by example, concealing the hardship he has to go through, the many meals he has to skip, just so his children have a roof and the ability to go to school.

Those days my dad would tell me we shouldn’t compare with others their haves and our have-nots because we have to understand this world was not created fair. Others will have advantages that we don’t or the connections that we lack. But we cannot complain because everyone is born different, some people are born rich and some children are born without their parents. We cannot compare one’s life with another’s like you can’t compare an apple to an orange.

If you spend your life comparing, then your life will be filled with complaints, if you spend your life inspiring, then your life will be filled with inspirations. If you set your life to changing your world, then you will be a fighter.

Change your destiny

In the UK, there is an Up series of documentary films that follow the lives of ten males and four females in England beginning in 1964, when they were seven years old. The first film was titled Seven Up!, with later films adjusting the number in the title to match the age of the subjects at the time of filming. The documentary has had nine episodes — one every seven years — thus spanning 56 years. In the end, the shows prove that the rich kids will grow up to be rich and the poor kids grow up to be poor, except one — Nick. He was raised on a small farm in Yorkshire and grew to become a promising professor at a Univesity.

The series shows that individuals can change their destiny if they fight for it. This is one of the rare documented examples, but there are countless such examples to exemplify the importance of never give up.

At times when we don’t succeed, we shouldn’t blame it on our parents or our past. Instead, learn to draw strength from our past to create our future.

Never give up

At the time when I was young and most vulnerable, having just broken up with my first girlfriend and lost my first job, I went to the crowded park filled with many joggers and park goers. I sat for very long and saw the world goes by, with teary eyes and a disturbed mind. And finally, when I couldn’t take it anymore, I shouted to myself. “You have nothing in this world, with every odds against you, if you give up now you will let down what your parents have sacrificed all their life. Whatever it takes, you must push through and open up a road, not just for yourself, but for everyone who is cheering you on.”

Coming back to the question I raised earlier, I believe most of us don’t have a well-to-do family to depend on, our success is heavily dependent on our mindset to succeed, to create our own dreams and to share our success with the people around us.