Thinking of Quitting, Just Think Again.

Many times people lose hope in life and want to quit. It may be a job or any other field like business or sports. But they can be successful if they hold on for a little longer. The support of the family members and friends is also important during this period.

Years ago I ventured into the stock markets hoping to gain success and become rich. When the markets collapsed I lost my shirt, including a large sum of money that I had saved. But I never gave up and persisted for a decade before I could understand the markets and identified multibagger stocks. If I would have lost hope and left in between I would have just heard in the books or from friends about multibagger stocks and would have never found out for myself.

In the same way, many people are tired of trying again and again and falling flat on their faces. Nothing positive happens so they decide to quit thinking themselves to be incapable. They try a few times and then believe that it is not written in their destiny to be successful.

The sad part is that they work harder than most other people but are not successful. Life is not always fair and all the fingers are not alike. If anyone has already conceded defeat in his field, then please read the examples below and make a decision. Take your own time and conclude:

1) Siddhartha Gautama

There are many stories we have heard about Lord Buddha in our lives and this is the one which I used to hear often. The story is of the time when Buddha had not reached enlightenment and was Siddhartha Gautama who had left his kingdom to search for the ultimate truth. In this case, Siddhartha received inspiration from nature which taught him a lesson.

Siddhartha had begun hard fasts and underwent lots of sacrifices for gaining knowledge of himself. After struggling for a long time he was not satisfied and decided to become the disciple of a saint, but was still not satisfied with the results. He accepted that meditation was the best way if one has to gain knowledge of self. But he had to go through lots of difficulties before reaching enlightenment.

One day he was tired; unable to find satisfaction anywhere, so in desperation, he sat down near a serene lake observing the divine beauty of nature. He was deep into his thoughts when he saw a squirrel with a nut in her mouth. He smiled at the little creature but the nut soon fell out of her mouth into the water.

The squirrel instead of panicking jumped into the water came out and wiped the water off her body. Again she jumped into the water and repeated the process. It was doing it again and again believing it could dry the water of the lake and recover the nut.

Gautama thought it to be foolish, as the squirrel would never be able to empty water from the lake; but he got a lesson and encouragement from the incident. He realized that if a small creature had the willpower to try and soak water from the lake why should he fear failure?

He felt that he should not get discouraged and try to attain enlightenment which seemed more possible than a squirrel drying out a lake. He once again sat for deep meditation under a shady tree beside the lake with more dedication, having thoughts of the supreme power and with tough meditation finally achieved enlightenment and began to be called the Buddha.

2) King Bruce and the Spider

Robert Bruce is the name of a king who fought for Scotland’s independence from England. He was crowned the King of Scots in 1306 and led Scotland to victory in the first war of Scottish independence against the English.

Soon the English repeatedly defeated his armies and he was forced into hiding. When his fighting spirits were broken he took refuge in a cave. Sitting in the cave he noticed a small spider attempting to weave a web. The spider tried again and again, but each time it fell, it had to climb back and try again. Finally, the spider managed to take hold and complete the web.

Robert Bruce imagined and associated himself with the spider’s struggles. After seeing the spider finally succeed, Robert found the inspiration to finally return and fight against the English; against all the odds.

He was victorious against the King of England in the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. The triumph turned the tide towards later winning the independence of Scotland in 1328.

3) Thomas Alva Edison

Almost everyone can name the man who invented the light bulb. Thomas Edison was one of the most successful innovators in American history. He was called the ‘Wizard of Menlo Park’ for his almost magical ability to snatch ideas from the thin air. But this was not always the case.

When he was young everyone thought him to be a dimwit. He attended a public school for a total of 12 weeks. As a hyperactive child, prone to distraction he was deemed difficult, or too stupid to learn anything by his teacher. So his mother had to pull him out of school and taught him at home. As Edison started working he was fired from his first two jobs for being non-productive. Life had given him plenty of negative experiences but he never thought himself to be useless.

Trying to invent things he did not fail once but several times. People used to call him a mad person but he never got discouraged and continued with his innovations.

As an inventor Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?”

Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

Imagine the number of failures he had to face and if he would have given up, we would be living in our houses with the oil lamps and not the electric bulbs.

4) Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln became the President of the United States of America in 1861; had failed many times in his life, but never gave up. He had failed so many times that he did not keep a knife near him so as not to kill himself with frustration.

When he was 9 years of age he lost his mother. His father remarried again and he did not get the expected love of his father. He wanted to study law but did not get admission; could not get married to a girl he liked at the age of 22 years.

As a young man, Abraham Lincoln went to war as a captain and returned a private. Afterward, he was a failure as a businessman. As a lawyer in Springfield, he was too impractical and temperamental to be a success.

He turned to politics and was defeated in his first try for the legislature, again defeated in his first attempt to be nominated for the congress, defeated in his application to be commissioner of the General Land office, defeated in the senatorial election of 1854, defeated in his efforts for the vice-presidency in 1856, and defeated in the senatorial election of 1858.

At about that time he wrote a letter to a friend,

“ I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.”

With a habit of never giving up, he rose to the rank of the president of the United States.

5)Henry Ford

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” Henry Ford.

Henry Ford is one of the most renowned entrepreneurs in history. He optimized transportation and forever changed the United States automobile industry.

Before his success, however, Ford encountered failure during the initial production of his first automobile. His investors got cold feet over Ford’s meticulousness, and he was unable to find solid financial backing for the automobile in his first two ventures. Nonetheless, Ford used the lessons from these failures to instruct his future success as an inventor and a businessman.

In your life too, many times you feel the whole world is against you. Whatever you plan, never materializes even after putting in the best efforts. During this time you have to be patient and keep trying.

6) Walt Disney

You will think that the imagination level of Walt Disney was great, so he was able to create such lovely cartoons and also incorporate Disneyland.

But just hear of his struggles. When he used to work in a newspaper as an editor his boss fired him saying he did not have any creativity. He formed his own animation company in 1921; his costs went up due to experimentation and then his distributor went bankrupt. As a result, he had to wind up his company and survive eating dog food. When he tried to negotiate for his cartoons in 1926 with Universal Studios they informed him that they had hired Disney artists working right under him.

When he tried to get MGM to distribute Mickey Mouse in 1927, they told him that the giant mouse would terrify women. Snow White and Seven Dwarfs was sneak previewed to College Students in 1937, who left halfway causing Disney great despair.

There were many other failures. Walt was human after all and suffered through many fits of anger and depression through his many trials. Yet he learned from each setback and continued to take even bigger risks which combined with the wisdom that experiencing failure can provide, led to great financial rewards afterward.

7) Colonel Harland Sanders

Colonel Harland Sanders(KFC) was a serial failure; he tried to start several companies and was fired from many jobs. His wife even left him at one time because he was always trying to get rich.

While in his 40s, Sanders started a café on a major highway, but his business died after a new highway was built, taking his customers with it. At the age of 65, he found himself penniless and decided to take his chicken recipe on the road. He would cook his fried chicken on the spot for restaurant owners to convince them to sell his chicken. Legend has it; he heard 1009 “no’s “before his first “yes”.

By 1964, Colonel Sanders had 600 franchises selling his trademark chicken. He sold his company for $2 million.

If we go through the above examples we will see that some of the most successful men on this planet had to go through repeated failures. But they were too strong to give up. Just leaving a problem in between and quitting is not the solution. One day you may come to repent this and may never be able to forgive yourself. Maybe in your later days, you will repent that you should have given it a further try.

By trying over again and again you may take time but will succeed one day; If not today, then tomorrow. But if you quit, that tomorrow will never come. All the people mentioned above have persisted through the adversities. They also went through the same frustrations that you are going through.

Always remember that tough times don’t last, but tough people do. And one day when you win the race and become successful there would be many people who will talk of your success story. But for that always remember to never give up.