The message represents, moreover, the acceptance of defeat, usually made possible by denying that it was a defeat at all. Washington's words, understood in the context in which he made them, prove this: while he was urging white Americans to recognize the struggles of black Americans to 'better themselves' as dignified, and possibly heroic, his message to the black community was: work hard, don't complain if you don't get where you want or are treated unfairly, and accept the fact that you did not reach the position in lie you deserved. Washington did not reject the gospel of success, he rationalized on the part of those tricked into believing it.

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We celebrate the human spirit of those who refuse to accept hardship and struggle to succeed. In My Left Foot, for instance, a man born with a debilitating disease - leaving him with nearly no control of his body - manages to learn to function and even paint with his left foot. Yet no matter how amazing his achievement may be, he cannot succeed at many endeavors we take for granted. A man who walks again after suffering a spinal injury may have shown unbelievable perseverance and drive, but he will not 'succeed' as a professional athlete or a tap dancer. While I may be proud that I mustered the courage to ask out the hottest girl in my class, I did not 'succeed' at much of anything when she flatly told me 'no.'

Ultimately, the very term 'succeed' is drained of meaning if the follow-up question is not answered: succeed at what? Washington's quote inadequate to describe the quality we admire in one who struggles. It is not her success we admire: on the contrary, it is her struggle itself.

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The Shackleton party failed their objective to be the first to reach the South Pole miserably when they were stranded on Elephant island , yet who remembers that now when we think of their story of preserverance and survival? In the face of overwhelming odds, they never lost hope and they never stopped striving to improve their situation. In the end, they achieved nothing more than survival, something they could have by not having left their cozy home at all. Yet their incredible journey will be remembered as a true testament of the human spirit.

The genious of Van Gogh's pictures was not recognized within his lifetime. If he judged himself by the standard of his accomplishments as measured by the world's approbation, he would have died thinking himself a failure. Instead, he chose to stay true to his struggle for his artistic vision, and his eventual accomplishment was great indeed, though he was not alive to see it.

Going to college is a common achievement now. While my parents were proud on my graduation day, they have come to see my graduation as a given. While the diploma is the same, I don't think I can compare the meaning of my diploma with that of someone who is the first in their family to achieve that diploma.

In conclusion, whether or not we succeed at our goals is often out of our hands. If we know within ourselves that we gave one hundred percent, we can rest, satisfied.

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The battles easily won are soon forgotten. The ones that stay with you are the ones you have fought and agonized over. You.?Tve put more effort, time and energy into creating that success. The battle for Civil Rights will not be forgotten as it was fought over many years, in a public manner, and included the cost of lives. The sacrifice has given a deeper meaning to the achievement.

Joseph Campbell states that as part of the hero.?Ts journey, he will face loss. This is best exemplified by the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. At the end of the story, it does not stop with the destruction of the ring. Rather, there is an examination of how each of the characters.?T lives has changed, for the better or worse. Frodo sacrificed a piece of himself in order to destroy the ring. A physical piece and a psychological piece. If the sacrifice was made in vain, it would not have been worth it. But the suffering and loss are made better by the achievement of the goal.

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Success is a soft term and has many different methods of being measured. A common measure of success in western societies is in the accumulation of goods and currency. Another measure of success is the respect one is given by one's peers. Booker T. Washington posits that success must also account for the monetary or social position one starts from before comparing it to the position when the measure is taken.

A man born to wealthy parents may seem to be successful when one sees his worldly goods. However, when the observer learns that the aforementioned man has not earned any of the money he has spent, then the man is not seen as successful. He is just lucky. Another man, born of poor parents, may achieve middle class status and be seen as a great success. In these two cases the measure of success is calculated by the multiple of accumulation over the span of one's life.

Other measures of success are in keeping stability when one's circumstances are not stable. One may keep a stable emotional state after the death of a loved one. A great success may be when one's house is undamaged by a hurricane.

What is common to all of this is that success is measured by the opinions of others. Is it possible to be successful when by all external measures one has failed?

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Some might believe that J.K. Rowling, author of the world-famous _Harry Potter_ books and one of the wealthiest women in the world, was merely fortunate -- lucky to be in the right place in the right time. You can point to her books and her hundreds of millions of dollars as markers of fame and success, but didn't she just get *lucky*? After all, thousands of people write novels and simply never get noticed by agents and publishers. That said, Rowling *did* work for her fame. She wrote her first book in poverty, estranged from her husband and with her baby in a stroller by her side while nursing a cup of coffee in a local restaurant. Rowling had plenty of obstacles to overcome, and *that*, not her books or her wealth, is why I believe she is successful.

By contrast, one of Rowling's countrymen also recently rose to fame. His idea? A web site called the 'Million Dollar Home Page.' He sold pixels for $1 apiece, and through good fortune and few timely web links, he actually mad a million dollars. Can he be called a success? Absolutely not -- he overcame little to achieve his goal. He didn't even follow up on his original reason for setting up the site: he was planning to use the money to pay for college, but instead he dropped out.

Finally, I'd like to talk about a person much closer to home: my stepbrother Mark Hedden. Mark has had an incredibly difficult life. His parents split up when he was just 5 years old. His mother neglected him, but when his father tried to win custody, the courts sided with his mom. Ignored by his mother, he eventually dropped out of high school. But he was passionate about art, and inbetween working assembly-line jobs, he created sculptures on the side. They are gorgeous creations of wood and stone, a pleasure to hold and behold. About 5 years ago, Mark decided to go back to school. Since he loved sculpture, he decided being a dental technician might be the best job for him: he could use his knack with his hands to sculpt dental implants. But soon after he started in school, he suffered a paralyzing back injury. Today Mark can barely walk. He is in debt. He relies on Social Security Disability for a meager $500 a month in income. Yet I still see him as a success. Despite these setbacks, and despite being in incredible pain, he maintains a positive attitude about his life. Though it's painful, he spends a few minutes each day trying to make art -- out of clay, or whatever is at hand. His works are beautiful, and they inspire me every time I see them. Mark isn't famous, and he'll never be rich, but he is a *true* success.

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If you don't succeed, you need to feed, and take heed of the heebeejeeb.

OMGWTFPWNT this exam!

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From this point of view, it is hard to disagree with Washington. As individuals in charge of our own lives, we must use the hand we've been dealt. Surely the poor kid who grew up on welfare, overcame a toxic school environment to get into Harvard, and graduated to a life of power and prestige has done more with her life than the heiress who slacked her way into the same position. It seems like an open-and-shut case to me: one showed uncommon strength and courage to rise above what others might have considered her potential; the other did not.

The reason I am so certain is the definition I'm using of success. Each of us is born into a specific position. Each of us is influenced by culture in ways we can't control. Each of us has a measure of inner ability which we can use to set our own destiny. Those who make strides towards leading the lives they envision for themselves are the ones who succeed.

What if someone were to argue against the notion of success itself? They might claim that there's no reason for our lives to have meaning and direction. What we do can't be fit onto a scale of success or failure. I reject this argument because that's just not the way I think people are. But if you wanted to mount a case against Washington's quote, that would be an interesting way to start.

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Generally speaking, I agree with Washington's statement. After all, the world is rife with people who have accomplished much -- after a great head start, namely a family fortune. The Rockefeller brothers come to mind at once. They were talented, true. But many people are talented. Were the Rockefellers so especially talented that the rose to governorships and the head of a great bank by dint of their great skills? Of course not.

Does that mean that (say) Nelson Rockefeller's rise to the head of a great American state and to the vice-presidency mean that he was just a mediocre person, and that his success was solely due to family connections and money?

No, it doesn't mean that. He WAS talented. (Of course, his family could afford to nurture his talent to its fullest.) His success is not to be sneered at.

But we are talking about a measurement here. You're asking me about a 'measure of success'. So measurement it must be, and I find Rockefeller and many others of his background to be lacking in compariion to others who started life with far fewer resources and overcame far greater obstacles. I don't mean to denigrate the many people who started with much and achieved much. But you have asked for a comparison.

Nelson Rockefeller (again, taking him as just an example) was talented. But Booker T. Washington was much more than that. He was a genius. His genius was in not just his mind, but in his his soul. He came from being a chattel slave in dirt poverty and roared out of that like an express train. His drive, his concentration, his vision, his compassion -- all these towered about normal men. Even talented normal men, like Rockefeller.

Booker T. Washington did not rise to nearly the heights that Nelson Rockefeller did. Washington was the head of a college, and a small one at that. Rockefeller was the head of the State of New York. Still, Washington's was the greater achievement, in my view.

Ask yourself -- if you could, as a thought experiment, place Rockefeller and Washington on a equal footing, who would 'win' by becoming the more successful person? The question answers itself, I think.

I don't mean to concentrate on just these two men. But look around you. This same story is repeated over and over again.

And always will be, I think.

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I think though while Nietzche may be correct, Washington is incorrect, as Nietzche focuses on the power of a will, while Washington is considering 'success' as a criterion. Who measures success? What does that mean? Overcoming obstacles is what refines one's character, but the idea that we need to 'succeed,' that we need some external goal after which one has 'succeeded' implies that we are incomplete without such a goal/process. Now of course in the course of our lives we have challenges and goals. But the focus should not be on 'succeeding,' because then one is distracted from what one has to do to achieve the goal itself. That focus of attention is essential to the process of overcoming obstacles.

So in summary, while I agree with the sentiment of focusing on overcoming obstacles from the standpoints of Nietzche and Washington, Washington's implied supremacy of a criterion of success is somewhat problematic.

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In contrast to a view which might be termed utilitarian (where the ends justify the means), Washington's view recognizes that means are just as important. The problem with this idea, and the idea of measuring success in general, is determining a norm or standard by which to compare overcoming obstacles (or indeed, achieving end results).

What does it mean to 'overcome' obstacles? In Washington's terms, speaking as a black man confronting prejudice, it is challenging the status quo that unfairly keeps certain members of society down. Yet is it fair to measure everyone by this standard?

Given someone with societal disadvantages (whether they be poverty, minority status, disability, etc.), ought we to measure their success by overcoming those obstacles, or by achieving the end results which they set for themselves?

Washington's statement, though it uses the term 'success', is really a gloss on 'self-improvement.' In the American mythos, both are paired together--to rise to one's highest level of self-potential is to achieve. Witness the number of get-rich quick schemes that have always been with us, and now plague daytime TV. These snakeoil salesmen prey upon the sense of impaired self-worth that listeners and viewers have.

Believing that success is due to one, and that it arrives by following a set of instructions to unleash one's 'inner potential' is at the core of many uniquely American movements (L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics books come to mind).

Washington is turning this upon its head. One develops a successful self not by gaining riches or achieving a specific level in society, but through the struggle to achieve. Throughout the struggle, one might find that the goal of 'success' radically shifts, even if you do reach your desired position, as Washington found.

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Recent work, however, suggests that at least many who excel got there primarily through hard work. One example is Mozart. He was a child prodigy, yes. However, his father was known to be a task master. And, Mozart's early symphonies would hardly be considered great works, and would have no acclaim at all if not part of his larger works developed later in life. Tiger Woods is thought of as a 'natural'. Yet Tiger spends long hours watching videos of his own play, then hones his techniques. Chess players clearly get better at the game through long hours of work.

Hours are not enough. If one plays 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' on the violin for hours and hours, one will eventually stagnate, with little improvement. One must face multiple challenges to achieve greatness.

For, for true greatness, Booker T. Washington has hit on a good measure. But the fact remains that most people are measured by a different scale. It isn't true greatness that is measured, but rather a sort of popularity contest. There are few who take the time to take the true measure of anyone.

And, there are few who listen to those who do. One might say that the current President is a great man. After all, nearly half of the people who voted elected him President. But the advertising that went on that claimed his greatness did not come from unbiased researchers. So the claim to greatness is quite hollow.

Unfortunately, history is also subject to this kind of popularity issue. Many claim that Aristotle was a great man. It may have been true. From the modern perspective, however, he helped hold back the advance of science for at least 1,500 years - hardly the sort of thing anyone would like to be known for as the result of their life's work.

So, no, Booker T. Washington has largely missed the mark.

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