The following was something I originally found on Quora, it's a great story and well worth the read.
“If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse.”
-Jim Rohn
I will tell you a story.
There was a young girl who was raised in circumstances where three meals a day was a luxury. Her family was so poor that she couldn't afford footwear or books. She would wear overly long dresses to school so her class mates wouldn't notice her bare feet.
Her father had old fashioned ideas about how sons vs. daughters should be raised. Education did not figure in his priorities for his daughters. However, a sympathetic colleague of his at work would sneak his daughter paper that was used only on one side. The girl would then sew them into a notebook and use those at school. Since she couldn't afford textbooks either, she would borrow them from her classmates in return for helping them with their homework, and would copy by hand every word and every diagram from each textbook into her homemade single sided notebooks.
She could have bemoaned her fate and quit school. Instead, she chose to look at it as extra practice and never complained.
Invariably, she would graduate at the top of her class and eventually made it all the way to high school, fighting tooth and nail against her circumstances all the way, every single day.
It was the night before finals. She was putting the finishing touches on her biology lab work journal, updating the diagrams, dotting the i's, crossing the t's - that kind of thing. It represented an entire year's worth of her work. She was so engrossed in her school work she forgot to look at the clock. It was her father's dinner time and she had not warmed his food yet. That was enough to drive him to such rage that he grabbed her journal and stuck the entire thing in the wood stove. Through blurry eyes, she watched her entire year's labor go up in flames. In order to make that journal which had to be submitted to external examiners for grading, she had specially gathered sheets of paper with pencil writing on one side, and erased every pencil mark using erasers so small they were discarded by their previous owners as unusable. She then measured and hand cut each sheet so they were all the exact same size before starting work on the journal of 100+ pages.
She could have crumbled and spirit crushed beyond hope at this point. Instead, when life handed her lemons, she decided she's going to make the best damn lemonade anyone's ever tasted.
She served her father dinner, and after he went to bed, she set about re-creating an entire year's worth of work overnight by the light of an oil lamp, because her father would have her hide if she wasted electricity studying. This time, she was racing against the clock and didn't have the time to identify and erase sheets with pencil marks and trim them all to precisely the same size. This cost her when her work was graded. She still ended up topping her class anyway.
She graduated high school with perfect scores and the highest honors in Math, Physics and Biology and with one point less than the perfect score in Chemistry. She was under immense pressure to accept the job offer from a local bank to work as a teller, the family really needed the money. But she dreamed of going to college. She was convinced education was her one way ticket out of poverty. She had her heart set on medical school. When her father heard that, he refused to give her money to buy a stamp till the last day the application was due, and on the last day, refused her bus fare so she could drop off the application in person.
She could have resigned herself to her fate and become bitter.
You can read the rest on quora at the link below...
http://www.quora.com/Teenagers-and-Teenage-Years/How-do-I-turn-my-life-around-as-a-teenager
“If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse.”
-Jim Rohn
I will tell you a story.
There was a young girl who was raised in circumstances where three meals a day was a luxury. Her family was so poor that she couldn't afford footwear or books. She would wear overly long dresses to school so her class mates wouldn't notice her bare feet.
Her father had old fashioned ideas about how sons vs. daughters should be raised. Education did not figure in his priorities for his daughters. However, a sympathetic colleague of his at work would sneak his daughter paper that was used only on one side. The girl would then sew them into a notebook and use those at school. Since she couldn't afford textbooks either, she would borrow them from her classmates in return for helping them with their homework, and would copy by hand every word and every diagram from each textbook into her homemade single sided notebooks.
She could have bemoaned her fate and quit school. Instead, she chose to look at it as extra practice and never complained.
Invariably, she would graduate at the top of her class and eventually made it all the way to high school, fighting tooth and nail against her circumstances all the way, every single day.
It was the night before finals. She was putting the finishing touches on her biology lab work journal, updating the diagrams, dotting the i's, crossing the t's - that kind of thing. It represented an entire year's worth of her work. She was so engrossed in her school work she forgot to look at the clock. It was her father's dinner time and she had not warmed his food yet. That was enough to drive him to such rage that he grabbed her journal and stuck the entire thing in the wood stove. Through blurry eyes, she watched her entire year's labor go up in flames. In order to make that journal which had to be submitted to external examiners for grading, she had specially gathered sheets of paper with pencil writing on one side, and erased every pencil mark using erasers so small they were discarded by their previous owners as unusable. She then measured and hand cut each sheet so they were all the exact same size before starting work on the journal of 100+ pages.
She could have crumbled and spirit crushed beyond hope at this point. Instead, when life handed her lemons, she decided she's going to make the best damn lemonade anyone's ever tasted.
She served her father dinner, and after he went to bed, she set about re-creating an entire year's worth of work overnight by the light of an oil lamp, because her father would have her hide if she wasted electricity studying. This time, she was racing against the clock and didn't have the time to identify and erase sheets with pencil marks and trim them all to precisely the same size. This cost her when her work was graded. She still ended up topping her class anyway.
She graduated high school with perfect scores and the highest honors in Math, Physics and Biology and with one point less than the perfect score in Chemistry. She was under immense pressure to accept the job offer from a local bank to work as a teller, the family really needed the money. But she dreamed of going to college. She was convinced education was her one way ticket out of poverty. She had her heart set on medical school. When her father heard that, he refused to give her money to buy a stamp till the last day the application was due, and on the last day, refused her bus fare so she could drop off the application in person.
She could have resigned herself to her fate and become bitter.
You can read the rest on quora at the link below...
http://www.quora.com/Teenagers-and-Teenage-Years/How-do-I-turn-my-life-around-as-a-teenager
Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member:
Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionaire mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)
Membership Required: Upgrade to Expose Nearly 1,000,000 Posts
Ready to Unleash the Millionaire Entrepreneur in You?
Become a member of the Fastlane Forum, the private community founded by best-selling author and multi-millionaire entrepreneur MJ DeMarco. Since 2007, MJ DeMarco has poured his heart and soul into the Fastlane Forum, helping entrepreneurs reclaim their time, win their financial freedom, and live their best life.
With more than 39,000 posts packed with insights, strategies, and advice, you’re not just a member—you’re stepping into MJ’s inner-circle, a place where you’ll never be left alone.
Become a member and gain immediate access to...
- Active Community: Ever join a community only to find it DEAD? Not at Fastlane! As you can see from our home page, life-changing content is posted dozens of times daily.
- Exclusive Insights: Direct access to MJ DeMarco’s daily contributions and wisdom.
- Powerful Networking Opportunities: Connect with a diverse group of successful entrepreneurs who can offer mentorship, collaboration, and opportunities.
- Proven Strategies: Learn from the best in the business, with actionable advice and strategies that can accelerate your success.
"You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with the most..."
Who are you surrounding yourself with? Surround yourself with millionaire success. Join Fastlane today!
Join Today
