The Blogger SAT Challenge

'I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position one has reached in life as by the obstacles he has overcome while trying to succeed.' -- Booker T. Washington

According to Booker T. Washington, success is a relative measure, not an absolute. Becoming a bank president, or even President of the United States, is not as significant an achievement for someone who is merely following in his father's footsteps as it would be for someone who started life with fewer advantages, for example. George W. Bush, who seems to have something of a chip on his shoulder about being compared to his father, may for example feel that his accomplishment in being elected President is diminished by the fact that, as Anne Richardson put it, 'He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.'

But even when someone starts out with major advantages of birth, fortune and position, the degree of success may appear to be greater if many personal obstacles have had to be overcome on the way. In Bush's case, overcoming alcoholism, a rebelious youth, and a lack of academic and business success early in life has made his eventual success appear brighter. Adding a 'born again' religious experience allows many who might otherwise hold his priviledged background against him to identify with his success, appreciating the obstacles he has overcome.

Nevertheless, heros who start with fewer advantages appeal more strongly to the American myth of success, and it is for them that we reserve our highest regard. Although Barack Obama is a newcomer on the political scene, for example, his meteoric rise in visibility and the fact that he is being widely mentioned as a possible presidential candidate after less than one term in the Senate indicates that his personal story of a rise from hardship to success in spite of discrimination and lack of resources is one that resonates with the American public.

Most Americans, I believe, would agree with Mr. Washington's statement, although material success as well as the overcoming of obstacles has always been important in our country. But our greatest mythic figures of success, such as Abraham Lincoln and even Horatio Alger, have been poor men who fought through one obstacle after another before finally acheiving success, whether as moral leaders or in the material realm.

Show the score given by the expert grader

Rate another random entry