Rachel Morgan

Language Arts #4

11/28/04

Success

The definition of success in the dictionary is ‘That which ensues; outcome; issue; a degree of succession, or prosperity; favorable termination of a venture; often the attainment of wealth, fame, etc.; a successful person or thing; one achieving success.’ I think that my definition of success varies from that a little though.

Not all success has to do with wealth or fame. It may be as simple as conquering trials and getting the job done. Here is a great example:

‘Hey mom, could you teach me how to sew?’ asked June looking up from the book that she was reading. ‘Then come over here to the sewing machine, let me show you how to get started,’ replied her mother who was sitting at the sewing machine that was on the dining room table. The mother then preceded her to show her all of the quirks of the sewing machine and how to work it. June, though, had many questions and many difficulties. ‘Why do I keep on making mistakes and my lines are not straight?’ she asked impatiently. ‘June, nothing comes at once, you have to work at it every day if you are to get as good as me. Nothing comes immediately when you want it. That is why practice makes perfect is so true.’ June was determined by now. She practiced sewing almost every day and continued to work harder. At first she had all sorts of problems arise like when the foot feeder started eating thread. So she had her mother help her learn how to fix that problem. Then her needle broke. Soon she knew how to change and replace needles. She also had lots of questions. When doing a skirt she had to learn how to do ruffles and zippers. Both of those took quite some doing to learn. She had many frustrations while learning them. Strings kept on breaking, fabric would get caught in the machine, patterns would tear, and many other annoying events. Soon enough though, she had soon mastered using the sewing machine. Just to prove it to her mom she even made her prom dress.

Some people may call wealth and fame success, but I do not. Why? I consider wealth and fame the rewards of being successful. Just because you are successful does not mean that you automatically get rich and/or famous. Take June in the story for example. She was successful at learning how to sew. She did not get lots of money or attention. She just learned how to do a simple thing and because of it she was able to reward herself with a cool prom dress that she made.

So how would I define success? It does not include money or attention because those are rewards. Instead it includes hard work and diligence. I think that success is being able to overcome trials and tribulations to meet your goal. What the goal is or what the reward is does not really count. Being able to get the job done does. The reward is just an extra special add on.