Resilience and Perseverance
Everyone Can Persevere, Not Everyone Does Persevere
What Is this about?
Eleanor Roosevelt, The Unforgettable Childhood
Eleanor Roosevelt was an amazing person that went through hardships that no one can even believe, all the death and tragedies made her strong and she died, but she died doing the best thing. Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11th 1984. While Eleanor was growing, she turned out to be an "ugly girl" around 8, unlike her "beautiful" mother Anna Hall Roosevelt. This was a huge disappointment for Eleanor because she would look at her mother's beauty and almost be jealous. Following this disappointment in 1890, her father Elliott Roosevelt had to alienate himself from his family to deal with drugs and Alcohol addiction, Eleanor Was only six. Her mother was forced to take care of everyone as best as she could, seeing her mother struggle made Eleanor upset and worried about her mother's patients. Not long after Elliot left, Anna went to the hospital for a surgery, in 1892, and afterwards developed diphtheria; she died soon after, when Eleanor was just eight years old. Diphtheria is a serious infection of the nose and throat that's easily preventable by a vaccine. Following Eleanor's mother's death, Eleanor’s two brothers came down with scarlet fever. Baby Hall survived, but 4-year-old Elliott Jr. developed diphtheria and died in 1893. Eleanor was sad and obviously heart broken to see nearly half of her family gone, but she still had her father. But she had to face another obstacle. Elliott’s dependency on drugs and alcohol got worse after the deaths of his wife and child and in 1894 he died. If you look back, within 18 months, Eleanor had lost her mother, her brother, and her father. Eleanor and her brother hall were forced to live with their grandmother. Eleanor was forced into boarding school, and did not return for her fourth year. She went about her life with a husband Franklin D. Roosevelt. At last after a hard childhood came a great ending she was very successful in the end, and was the First Lady. Hardships will come left and right and they may knock you down, but there is always another path, always another opportunity, always another opening. You just need to find that path, and get back up on your feet and keep going. Persevere.
Salva Dut VS Amir Mahmoud
Salva and I have many things in common, but we also have many differences. Salva is the main character off a true story called Long Walk To Water. We have had difficulties that have changed our lives. Salva differs from me because he lost both of his parents for a long period of time, on the other hand I have been away from my parents do to medical reasons of my brother. Yet we were both reunited with them, however Salva did not know if his parents were dead or alive..We are alike because we both speak the arabic language, although we speak the same language the dialect is different, the dialect I speak is egyptian. Not only that but I speak it as a second and so does he. One of my immediate family members passed away which was my brother, on the other hand Salva didn’t have anyone die in his immediate family, not that he knew of. The biggest difference between us is that Salva never knew if he would be able to live when he woke up with little water, little food, little care. I never had to worry about the supply of water because I knew that I had the water faucet to fill my cup with. I knew my parents were going to be there to buy me food. I knew I could call the 911 if I was injured. We also have another difference, the place we lived in. He lived in a village, and his home was made out of material that is not even close to what we would use for a bed to sleep on. The condition that he lived in is unbelievable, and unthinkable because the condition that I live in is great condition and I wouldn’t need to have some of the worries that he had, it can be easily set on fire, one windstorm and his house can be blown over, or worse if a tornado hit than the village would be nothing but the poor materials of the house. The biggest similarity we have in common was that we had to persevere, and we needed resilience. It is never an option to give up, in this case nobody failed, but we both fell and we both found an opening. We got back on our feet and walked it off, Salva kept looking and went about every day wondering if he will ever find his family again and he did. The sadness can and will stay with you forever, but it’s how you act that determines who you are, we both had perseverance.
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey had many awards and has hosted and had many tv and talk shows. She didn’t have a bunch of obstacles, but the ones she had are things no kid should go through. For example she was actually whipped when she was a little kid. “I went to a well to get some water and carried it in a bucket. And I was playing in the water with my fingers, and my grandmother had seen me out the window and she didn’t like it. She whipped me so badly that I had welts on my back and the welts would bleed. And then when I put on my Sunday dress, I was bleeding from the welts. And then she was very upset with me because I got blood on the dress. So then I got another whipping for getting blood on the dress,” she said. The worst part about this story is that she said on a talk show that she was beaten regularly and that’s not ok. The fact that she says regularly sound like something that is ok in an everyday household. Sure your parents may give you a little spank when you're like 6, but the word she used was beaten and that’s why it’s unacceptable. The worst years of her life between 10-14 consisted of harassment from her whole family. Throught her child up to the point where she ran away, her mother would insult her and threaten her. For example one of the phrases was “ you better get your butt out of this house”, although the word used for but was a swear word. She ran away from home when she was 13 years old. At 14, she became pregnant due to the harassment of her family (the baby died shortly after birth) and she moved in with her father in Tennessee. It looks like Oprah would torture herself or commit suicide after all these hardships, but she never did. For instance there is a common saying, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The reason this relates to this story is because Oprah even said She was thankful, she said, for everything that had happened. “I would take nothing from my journey.” Everyone faces obstacles, but it’s what you do when you face them. Will you get up if you get knocked down and brush it off and persevere and try to overcome them, or will you stay down when they knock you over and not do anything about it. What happened to her in her childhood was a violation of the law, but that made her stronger and overcoming the obstacle was the right choice. She found the path she found that opening. The opening won’t come to you, you must come to the opening.
Shia LaBeouf
Shia LaBeouf is a man who pursued a film career, landing the part of Sam Witwicky in the blockbuster Transformers series. Other film roles have included Constantine, Disturbia, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints and Eagle Eye, as well as the animated Surf's Up. Labeouf did not have a lot of money when he was growing up, they were street performers and his dad was a professional clown and his mother was a dancer. Since LaBeouf was always performing on the streets he came across a child actor that had a nice payday. He was then inspired to get into the entertainment industry as a way of improving his situation. This inspiration impacted him in a good way because at the age of 10 he became a stand up comedian at a club, it’s one thing to be a comedian it’s another thing to be good comedian and LaBeouf was good. All the fame caused him to hire an agent and he was able to find one in the phone book. Since he got a agent so by 14, LaBeouf had a featured role on a popular children’s comedy series on the Disney Channel. The show was called Even Stevens and it was a huge hit. Then because he became so popular off that show he got a “taste” of screen success with the film adaptation of Louis Sachar novel Holes. The outcome of LaBeouf’s life was good the obstacles in his life had a good effect on him. LaBoeuf had one big struggle, poverty. But overcoming the obstacle and putting the thought in his mind saying “i’m tired of struggling” was good. It helped him, he found a path but again it wasn’t hand it to him he persevered and he is very rich and famous and doesn't’ have to worry about losing a dime.
Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey is a comedian and actor best known for comedic and dramatic film roles in movies including Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and The Truman Show. The problem with this actor is he seems all fun and games. Although you may not know it, Jim Carrey has dealt with major depression for a significant portion of his life. In fact, at one point, his depression became so bad, that he didn’t know how he would overcome it. Carrey’s symptoms were anger, despair, moodswings, relationships, and stress. Because he couldn’t let his career down due to depression, and since he knew that his fans loved him so much, he persevered and tried to find a solution. One solution was acceptance. He talked about how he has had problems in his life, but he is accepting that there will be problems and hardships in his life, and he is ok with that, he is accepting that. The next step was to continue acting. His roles in his movies were funny and goofy and he made himself laugh. When he sees himself make others laugh, it puts a smile on his face. It would make anyone smile. The most obvious step was to avoid drugs and alcohol what so ever. He is keeping his body clean and free of alcohol and drugs, as a matter of fact he doesn’t even drink coffee because he doesn’t need any substance to feel good about life. The next two were perceptual changes, and purpose. Next was spiritual experience. Carrey specifically stated that he needed a spiritual connection. Jim had mentioned that when he embraced his spiritual nature and found a “loving place,” he became happier. The last piece to the puzzle was staying busy. When you are bored an hour feels like forever and when you are having fun time flies. When you are hungry and you have nothing to do, an hour feels like forever, when you are hanging out with friends time flies. When he works he gets his mind off his problems. Carrey was sad and depressed and faced it for a long time, but he searched and found not one but many openings. This resembles perseverance because depression is very hard to overcome and he did.