Published March 14, 2010
How can one achieve success? Here is the recipe:
SUCCESS
1 cup Ambition
1 cup Determination
3 heaping pounds of hard work
10 tons of mental strength
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put all ingredients into bowl and mix. Bake for as long as it takes to achieve success.
Ambition is one of the four most important ingredients of success. Without ambition, nothing can be accomplished. If Thomas Edison hadn’t had the ambition to invent, we wouldn’t have the light bulb. If a caveman hadn’t had the ambition to create a new way to move, we wouldn’t have the wheel. If God hadn’t had the ambition to create, I wouldn’t be typing this right now. Ambition is good. We must think big. As Wes Jackson once said, “If your life’s work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you’re not thinking big enough.” Basically, to be successful, you need a motive. For most people, this is ambition.
"Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition. By that sin fell the angels."
-William Shakespeare
This quote is not entirely true, but what we must take out of this is the fact that we must control our ambition. Lucifer’s blind ambition got him kicked out of Heaven and into the fiery pits of Hell.
Determination is essential to success as well. Once you have ambition, you need to keep on it. To accomplish and succeed, you need to be determined. You need to have a resolve of steel. Once you have the motivation to do something, you must stick to it in order to persevere and come out on top. Determination keeps you from giving up in the face of failure.
Hard work. Most people cringe at these words. But unfortunately, success does not come without work. Nothing will EVER be accomplished without work. Ambition and determination are only figments of our brain. They truly accomplish nothing without good old-fashioned hard work.
Mental strength? I believe that 95% of being successful in life is psychological. Ambition and determination start in your mind. Confidence that you can succeed is in your mind. The only thing that keeps you from being successful is your own doggone head. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard, “Oh, I CAN’T do this.” You can! You can! You can! For those of you who are Americans: We are AmeriCANS, not AmeriCAN’TS. For those of you who are another ethnicity, you can make up your own corny slogans. The message here is that: You can do it. If you get past the mental dam that’s holding back the flowing waters of success, you can be successful.
I’ll take a line from Frank Sinatra’s song “High Hopes”
Once there was a silly old ram
Thought he’d punch a hole in a dam
No one could make that ram, scram
He kept buttin’ that dam
’cause he had high hopes, he had high hopes
He had high apple pie, in the sky hopes
Bust that dam! Be successful!
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Thanks for all your comments!
-Minister
Hey there. I agree with Ben-it seemed a little too expected. Although it's a nice, true piece, it's got nothing we haven't heard before. I thought the fact that it read like a recipe was cute, so maybe you could expand upon that, or add a few additional arguments, maybe mention something about not giving up in the face of rejection? All depends on what you want, so long as it's original and tells a good story to the reader.
PM me if you have any questions.
-Elinor
Okay, so the title is obviously quite explicit since you've laid this out with an ingredients bit at the start which kind of doubles up as an introduction, but as much as I like that, I feel it was a little too expected. Perhaps it might've appeared better if you'd weaved it in in your writing instead.
As for the main content of this, I like your arguments. I also enjoy how you've included quotes from people most of us know. I don't really like the song at the end, but hey that's just my own personal opinion. From eye's glance this is written well. So keep it up.
The following line was a little confusing, this might be because of a typo/grammar issues, I don't know, but it didn't sound right:
Hope this helps & Keep writing,
Ben