A reason to keep going...

  Howdy again. Now that I've gotten started it seems a bit hard for me to stop! Now that I actually have the free time to do this as well. But enough about that. Yesterday I was browsing around the social media when I came upon this picture:

I looked it up a bit further and found out it was an athlete called Oscar Pistorius who, even though has no legs, has made through to the semi finals of the (200 m, 400m, I don't know) of the Olympic Games of London! And I kept thinking of what sort of effort this man had to go through, to be where he is today. Totally worth it!

   Then it got me thinking on another issue... What are people actually capable of? This person lost his feet and yet he is one of the fastest people on the planet! Others have had major setbacks and came through to become quite remarkable as well. Einstein sucked at math, f.e.

   But what is it that drives people to reach greatness? What makes us legends? Well, for me personally a person must be talented at something if he's to actually go to that level. But there are other things as well. Talent can only get you so far. Effort is also important. To make mistakes, to be willing to learn from them and to have the guts to not give up when things get tough. To be able to handle the pain so that you can reach your goal. All that is what defines the legends from the rest of the people. Surely anyone has the potential to do it. But only few reach the end.

   There are a few kids that are credited in the beginning of their career as having "amazing potential". So they rest on their merits, thinking that they are already good enough than the rest. Until, one day, they suddenly open their eyes to fact that they've been left behind by others who weren't even half as good a few years (or months) back. But, by trying hard enough, even an outcast can become better than a prodigy. So when getting into this kind of thing it's always important to keep remembering your goal, always staying with it and never quitting.

   But what's it all for? There are people who begin their careers as hobbies and end up sacrificing everything for them. What urges them so? Well, unfortunately the most common answer these days is money. Specifically if the career we're talking about evolves around a low income and a person is required by his company to transfer to another town f.e., then that person is actually sacrificing his life for his career. Or even in other professions such us entertainment (singing, acting, etc). A lot of those people that are millionaires spend months or even years away from their families because they are tied to multi-million contracts that demands their presence until their work is done. So, not everything is peachy there either.

   Another common answer would be that some people don't know any differently. Their career choice is something they have been doing from a young age and probably don't consider themselves good at anything else simply because they haven't tried (even though most of them would have wanted to, as goes the "always-wanting-what-you-can't-get" paradox in the human psychology). So they go to great lengths to maintain their careers out of fear of the unknown.

   And then there's another reason. One that comes to mind if you consider the fact that people have always been doing this sort of stuff, even before the invention of money and before the settling of the routines we have today. So, what was it all for? A reason to be remembered. People have always wanted glory, they have always wanted to be spoken of by others, and, of course, they want to be remembered even after their deaths. They strive for greatness so that they can have something to leave behind, something for the next generations to speak of. That is the noblest of reasons and even though this doesn't apply for many people today, it's still there. That gives them all the power and strength they need to go through any hardship, any struggle that might come their way, so that they can leave a legacy behind them. 

   This world is full of possibilities. But that's all they are. It's up to us to find our reason for greatness, decide how we're gonna go for it and make it to the top. Anyone can do it...