Valerie Steimle
A new movie hit the theaters last weekend called “The Help”. The story centers around married women who hired help in their homes during the 1960’s in Mississippi . But that’s not what caught my attention about the story. What was interesting about this story, which was a best selling book by the way, was that the author, Kathryn Stockett, persisted through 60 rejection notices until she found someone to publish her manuscript. She had labored over three years on this project and sent out 60 letters of inquiry for her book and it was letter number 61 that got her published into the literary world. I applaud her perseverance. Sheer persistence is difficult to find these days.
Endeavoring to do anything worth wile and succeed takes sheer persistence. Public school starts this week for both Mobile and Baldwin County and our youth need to learn that success in learning takes this kind of fortitude. It is not always easy to remember everything for a test or be successful in a sport or learn to play a musical instrument successfully but persistently trying over and over again will get results.
As in life itself, if we want to be successful at whatever we pursue, it takes practice. I don’t think the rising generation has understood what it takes to conquer a skill. With all that is at our fingertips in modern times, persistence is soon forgotten as one of life’s greatest lessons. I forget that lesson myself sometimes until I have to push to finish a task. Nothing really comes that easy.
My daughter was watching the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the other day and one of the songs that isn’t played much from that whole musical score is called The Roses of Success. The grandpa in the story is kidnapped mistakenly by the King of Bulgaria thinking he was the inventor of this famous car. When he is thrown into the dungeon of the castle with the other inventors, they sing a song about how with every mistake made in creating something, you come a little closer to success. From the ashes of disaster, come the roses of success.
I need to play that song sublimely every night before I go to bed so I will remember when I wake up. From the ashes of disaster come the roses of success. It is difficult sometimes to be self motivated but with persistence, success will finally come. So to all those teachers and students starting out a new year of learning, persistence is the key to success. Don’t give up so easily at learning when you don’t get it the first, second or even the third time. Remember Katherine Stockett took 60 times to get it right.
