Success’ Substance

[PureHeart 0]

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Have you ever wondered what success is when there are so many people who dedicate their lives to it? Is it the perfect work results or the great accuracy? Or is âto be successfulâ, to have a rich life, or to be honored by many people? So, take a few minutes to think deeply, life will show you there are people who reached success in an unexpectedly simple way.

 

Success is when father and son have enough courage to enter the kitchen and cook the food which mother likes as in the occasion of womenâs day. The soup may be a little bit salty, the fist (which should be red) turns black and then when looking at the meal, mother still smiles. Because father and son couldnât be successful in the kitchen, but they were successful when giving mother âthe roseâ of love. Thatâs a present which is more valuable than any of the most valuable gifts; the happiness is deep inside motherâs eyes.

 

Success is also the story about a boy with a foot illness who would never be able to walk normally again. Heâs kept the dream of being a football player ever since he was very young. After many tries to exert himself, he became a reserve football player on a small football team. Heâs never taken part in an official game. But thatâs not a failure. Instead, the real success went to the boy, who overcame the situation with so much energy and will, to follow his childhood dream. How many people can achieve that kind of success?

 

Every year, after the time of university entrance examinations, there are so many candidates that get sad when failing their exams. 27/30 is such a high score. But it doesnât make sense when the school requires 27.5. In fact, thatâs still not failure, thatâs just delayed-success. Life still welcomes them with others options. The most important thing is that they tried their best to affirm themselves. Thatâs the original meaning of contest and itâs also the substances of success.

 

When I was young, I read a moving story. Itâs about a poor boy with an essay about mother - the one who protects your life. The boy wrote about a mother with silver hair and husky but warm hands. He concluded: Grandmother is the mother - the woman who covered him during the journey of life. The essay has digressed from the subject and needs rewriting. But thatâs still a successful piece of work, because itâs filled with the love of an orphaned boy for his grand mother. Is there any success, any sentiment more sacred than that?

 

Many years ago, newspapers honored a poor student who entered the university with the perfect score. To him, thatâs a big success. Thereâs another success, silent but great, which belongs to a father who drove a cycle (a transportation vehicle with 3 wheels, popular in Vietnam) for almost 20 years to raise money for his sonâs study. Faith and hope were always on the fatherâs face, sustaining lots of misery and hard work. And the day the son entered the university is also the day his father graduated from the course-for-a-father.

 

I know thereâs a female student who graduated from university with excellent ranking 20 years ago. With her talent, she could have achieved success on the paths of career and fame. But that student accepted to sacrifice chances of her life to become a good wife, a virtuous mother of two little princesses. Even now, when sheâs a middle-aged woman, sheâs still saying: âTaking good care of you and your father, to me, is a big successâ. Whenever hearing that saying, Iâm moved to tears. Family is the success, the beautiful work of mother, and we must thank her for that.

 

People always long for success, but just following it blindly is nonsense. You want to be rich or you want to be a millionaire like Bill Gates? So, please fold your money carefully and give it out to a beggar, homeless or poor person. With that good action, you will show not only that youâre rich in matter but also youâre rich spiritually. Therefore, youâre really a success!

 

You may dream that success will come to you like it does to Abramowitz - the manager of the All-star team. Success is not so far away, you just need to spend some time taking care of âthe football teamâ of your family. There, youâll receive unlimited love, what Abramowitz would never receive from his players. Success comes to everyone in such a sweet and simple way.

 

You were born â thatâs a great success of your parents. Your responsibility is to keep the perfect beauty of that success. Donât ever think life is just a sequence of failures; as a professor said: âThereâs no failure, itâs just the way we spend our livesâ.

 

And to me, success is when someone reads this small article. Maybe the score wouldnât be high, but being able to put my own thinking to writing, to me, is a success.

The original version of this essay belongs to a 15 year-old Vietnamese girl named HĂ  Minh Ngọc. It was rated 9.5/10 by her literature teacher.

English version Š 2006 Nguyễn Văn Thoại (PureHeart@Xisto)

Translated by Nguyễn Văn Thoại (nguyenvanthoai at gmail dot com)

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Edited May 11, 2007 by PureHeart (see edit history)