Rising Above

NOTHING MOTIVATES PEOPLE like being underestimated. Call a human being a "loser", and likely as not you'll soon see a winner. My policy is; no matter who is on the other side of the net holding a tennis racket, respect him. You just never know.

I shall never firget the time in graduate school, the world war one seminar, when i got off to a bad start, and the professor chewed me out in front of the whole class. From then on I was motivated, very motivated, and I ended p with the best grade in the class, all because of the early chewing out.

Some of my favorite people, my "heros' if you will, ar people who got off to a rough start, were told, sometimes repeatedly, that they were worthless, then proved their worth, convincingly. Maybe that's why two of my heros are albert einstein and davy crockett, strangely enough. You might not expect two such different prople to attract the same follower.

Einstein was very late learning to talk, so late, in fact, that his parents suspected that he might be impaired in some way. He didn't utter his first words until well after the age of two. He was an unimpressive student in school, and dropped out of high school after one of his teachers told him that he would never amount to anything, if you can imagine something so ldicrous as telling albert einsteine that he would never amount to anything.

Einstein was twenty five years old, working as a clerk in a patent office, spending most of his time doing what he loved most; thinking.Friends and familly thought he was going nowhere, and told him so. But einstien was like a tiger, crouching in the grass, ready to strike. and strike he did.

he wrote a letter  to one of his detractors  which began :  " I  promise you four papers..."....
the four papers turned out to be five, and together they totally changed our understanding of the universe. Finally, einstein had "amounted to something."

davy crckeet grew up in the middle of nowhere - the american frontier - never had any schooling, his father beat hum, and he had to teach himself how to read and write. He entered politics because his friends said he had a great personality and natural intelligence and wisdom, so he went to congress, and all the wealthy, educated stuffed shirts made fun of him.

During his time in congress davy crockett rose above the ridicule and stood up for the rights of the common person, the poor person, the downtrodden, and brought true integrity to politics. HE then died fighting for freedom. I reckon davy ended up amounting to something.

Both albert einstein and davy crockett played the violin. Eintein played classical music with mediocre ability, davy played barn yard square dance moonshnine fiddle fast and loud, after teaching himself how to do it. He wouldn't've had it any other way, I reckon.