Finding the Bow in the Rain

Once a boy and his family were forced out of their house, so he had to work to support them. Two years later, more tragedy befell him, and his mother died. A few years later, he failed in business. He decided to run for state legislature, but lost. He lost a job too, so he applied to law school, but couldn't get in. He then borrowed money from a friend to begin a business, but by the end of the year he was bankrupt.

Then his fiancé died, and he was heartbroken. He had a nervous breakdown and was in bed for six months. He tried to become speaker of the state legislator and lost. He tried to become an elector and lost. He ran for Congress and lost. He ran for Congress again and finally won, but lost his re-election. He tried to get the position of land officer (in his home state!) but was rejected. He ran for U.S. Senate and lost. He ran for Vice President and lost. He ran again for U.S. Senate and lost again. And then, by chance, he became president - President Abraham Lincoln.

That's astounding when you think about it– it almost defies human limits: to keep trying, to keep failing, to keep trying, to keep failing. Somehow it seems like a normal human being would give up along the way – say that he couldn’t handle it, that it just wasn’t meant to be, that he couldn’t beat the odds. Then again, Lincoln wasn’t a normal human being. But then, are any of us?

The element that distinguishes successful people from non-successful people is not luck – it’s how they view failure. Or sometimes it’s just as simple as realizing, when they feel like giving up, why they held on for so long.

Remember why you’ve held on; remember why you haven’t given up yet. Where there’s a will there’s a way, because there is nothing stronger than your set will. The way will be cruel, it will hurt, it will test you, but that just means that what you are going after is worth so much more.

Lincoln wasn’t a normal human being. We don’t have to be either.

{Just in case, finding the bow in the rain = rainbow ;) }