“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” These were the words of Pele, the late great Brazilian footballer, who won 4 World Cups, and I’m sure, would know the value of perseverance. He came from a small impoverished town, to become arguably the greatest footballer of all time.
During our 6-month long haul so far, we have endured a countless number of challenges, but the way that we overcame these were through hard-working perseverance, learning along the way about each other, and how our morals and values matter greatly. Overcoming challenges is one of the hardest things to do, especially nowadays, with modern technology providing easy solutions out of tough spots. Procrastination also plays a massive role in the reasoning behind leaving out and forgetting about a challenge, even possibly multiple challenges. This builds up a habit of laziness and this is not a good impact for the long-term, and especially with the body still developing at a young age, it is crucial to ensure that problems are not being built up for the future. The future, where those problems may return.
Within our CanSat project, the issues that we have faced have not caused long-term detriment or reappeared later on due to the fact that we faced our challenges at the time. Perseverance is crucial to ensuring success in the long-term. Because, yes, sometimes ignoring a problem can be great in the short-term, but really, all that you are doing is increasing the problem. And, to be truthful, determination is very much underappreciated and overlooked, but it is vital to success. Most of the time, when we are solving issues, we have no idea that we are actually overcoming a challenge at the same time.
When people talk about success, so much of that talk is about intelligence and talent and creativity and inspiration, that it is seemingly simple to succeed, and that no stumbles or roadblocks are in the way, as if success was guaranteed from the start. Truly, no-one can genuinely say that they cruised through life, as if they had no challenges. Yes, it is true that some people are more privileged, and may have less problems in life, but that is just a virtue of birth, and there are others, like Pele, who overcome several more challenges in life, who were unlucky to be born in the situation that they were in, but their hard work and perseverance makes a much harder path to success so much easier. Ultimately, it is up to the individual and their attitude that finally sees someone through to success. Yes, human nature does procrastinate, but overall, we are a species that persevere to ensure survival, and it is through this constant persistence, that our goals can be achieved in spite of all of the obstacles along the way.
Image from-This Is A Book, by Demetri Martin
And, as the image above shows, success isn’t achieved easily, our CanSat has definitely not been straightforward, and there have been many diagonals along the line throughout, but through it all, we have come out pretty successful. After all, you are reading this article, so surely we have done a half-decent job.
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