If we were allowed to go through life without any obstacles, we would be crippled. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. History has shown us that the most celebrated winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.

Lou Holtz, football coach of the University of South Carolina, once said, "Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity."

Beethoven composed his greatest works after becoming deaf. George Washington was snowed in through a treacherous winter at Valley Forge. Abraham Lincoln was raised in poverty. Albert Einstein was called a slow learner, retarded and uneducable. If Christopher Columbus had turned back, no one could have blamed him, considering the constant adversity he endured.

As an elementary student, actor James Earl Jones (a.k.a. Darth Vader) stuttered so badly he communicated with friends and teachers using written notes.
Itzhak Perlman, the incomparable concert violinist, was born to parents who survived a Nazi concentration camp and has been paralyzed from the waist down since the age of four.

Chester Carlson, a young inventor, took his idea to 20 big corporations in the 1940s. After seven years of rejections, he was able to persuade Haloid, a small company in Rochester, N.Y., to purchase the rights to his electrostatic paper-copying process. Haloid has since become Xerox Corporation.

Thomas Edison tried over 2,000 experiments before he was able to get his light bulb to work. Upon being asked how he felt about failing so many times, he replied, "I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2,000-step process."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, elected president of the United States for four terms, had been stricken with polio at the age of 39.

Persistence paid off for General Douglas MacArthur. After applying for admission to West Point twice, he applied a third time and was accepted. The rest is history.

In 1927 the head instructor of the John Murray Anderson Drama School instructed student Lucille Ball to "Try any other profession. Any other."

Academy Award-winning writer, producer and director Woody Allen failed motion picture production at New York University (NYU) and City College of New York. He also flunked English at NYU.

Helen Keller, the famous blind author and speaker, said: "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved. Silver is purified in fire and so are we. It is in the most trying times that our real character is shaped and revealed."

I concur!

The Message is don't give up on your dream, prepare to pay the price for enduring success not overnight success.

In addition, invest in yourself everyday. How? Either as an employee or Contractor, businessman,etc whatever your calling, people or the society will pay you for the value of what you can offer. Your connection can get you the first contract but the quality of your performance that can give you repeat and sustainable business.

Therefore, learn a little about everything as much as possible, read wide,acquire skills such as swimming, driving,running,marshal art, learn new languages (local & foreign) if you can,your knowledge of any of the above may determine whether you live or die.

Furthermore, believe and identify with a course within your society. Be it the the orphans, the disables, the widows, the down- trodden etc. We should not live a life of "My family, me,Myself & I".

Most rich people do not care about the poor in our society and that is why insecurity is getting highest allocation in the 2012 budget instead of Education,Health and Agriculture.

What do you expect when you have an army of intelligent (mostly graduates) youths that are unemployed? Instead of budgetting more for job creation, Govt at all level will prefer to buy more armour tanks and bullet-proof Jeeps!