Blog

“If you reach for the stars, you may not catch one, but you will reach to your full capacity.” – Anonymous. Those who succeed at what they do are not necessarily those who are more intelligent, but those who reach for the stars. There are some people who are born with intelligence yet they don’t use it to their greatest potential, and if they aren’t willing to take advantage of it, they might as well not use their intelligence at all. Eric grew up in a wealthy community. He always learned to behave in school. He was the son of the best doctor in town. He was the child with the highest expectations in all his relatives’ lives and never really stopped to take the time to understand who he was and what he wanted to do with his life. By high school he was so bored by the usual everyday pop quiz, he started slacking back expecting to get an A+ handed to him. What Eric didn’t realize was that if he didn’t have the passion, he wouldn’t get the reward.Steven grew up in the trashy streets of Chicago, Illinois living with his single mother who barely earned enough money to feed her children. Steven took advantage of the little education he had. He struggled in school because he did not see a meaning in cramming a vast amount of information a day before the test just to earn a pretty A+ on his report card only to forget it all the next day. Once he got into high school and had more opportunities and selections to explore in more depth, he studied more than he needed to in order to pass the test. He didn’t care about getting an A+. He cared about mastering the information and using that information to help him later in his career.Eric and Steven both earned A+’s at one time in their education, but there was a point where the grades didn’t even matter anymore; that is the main difference between the two. In the long run, the question is not how far one will go in life, but how far one is capable of going. Eric’s parents’ dreams were for him to go to Harvard and graduate first in his class. They wanted him to go far. Steven’s dreams were to go as far as he could go. He wanted to go as far as the text book would take him even if he wasn’t going to be tested on it. He wanted to reach as high as he could go while Eric wanted to look to the ground and scoop a handful of dirt; his intelligence was very high but leaning down was so much easier than reaching to the top of his intelligence.In American society we celebrate those who are born with a high degree of intelligence. Perhaps it is time we celebrate those who have the willingness to stretch to the stars regardless of their own limitations.