The race
Parables and Illustrations for Values Education |
History it must to Dr. D.H. Grobérg:
They were already all runners ready for departure. They only hoped the starting whistle with tense muscles. Each of them was thinking about winning the race or, if not possible, be among the first. Parents watched and encouraged their children, and each child was expected to show his father that he would be the winner.
At last sounded the whistle and burning ripped with restless hearts and hopes. Win and be a hero on that morning was the desire of every young person.
A boy broke from the peloton and took the lead. Knowing that his father was there, watching you, put wings at his feet. He would win and his father would be proud of it.
Did not see that raised root, stumbled, and the boy who was going first fell from face to face in the midst of the laughter of the crowd. Also fell their hopes with him. It would not be the winner. Sad, embarrassed, I thought just disappear.
Then he saw the radiant and loving face of his father who encouraged him to continue. If still believed he could win, he sobrepondría and would make an extraordinary effort and would get the victory.
It was already recovering some jobs, I could see the boys who were at the tip, but his mind ran faster than his legs, slipped and fell again. It wanted to have been removed before, when it fell for the first time. Now the humiliation and shame were older. It had lost the race and he was lost as a broker.
But among the crowd that laughed, looked for and found the face of his father and his penetrating gaze that told him with hope and love: «stand up and win the race».
He jumped up and tried again. The first runners nailbiting him by more than 30 meters. With an unprecedented effort, he managed to shorten the distance, but once again, slipped and fell finally defeated on the ground.
No sense trying it. Tears of rage and spite rolled her eyes. It would be withdrawn and painfully face the disappointment of his father and the agaves of the crowd.
Then heard the game voice of his father: "stand up and take your place. You can't and you must fold. Get up and win the race. You have not lost yet. To win only you need to get up whenever you fall».
Stood up and began to run with all his strength. He wore his breaded eyes and in their hearts they rang new courage. I knew that it could not win, he would not even among the top, but it would continue until the end although it fell again. It would not be withdrawn.
The winner was acclaimed when he crossed the finish line. Head high, proud, happy: without falling, without mishap, without misfortune. Winner.
And when the young man who had fallen crossed the finish line last, it was the most acclaimed by the crowd not to surrender and finish the race. It almost seemed that it was he who had won the race. Expect it of his father arms which received it like a champion.
-I didn't do it very well - said the young man sadly.
-For me, you won - told the father - tea stood up whenever you fell and you followed running without surrender.
Life is to fight. Be constant and conquer. To win there to knowing how to lose and keep trying. The greatest glory consists not in not falling, but in rising everytime one falls. The difficulties to build the heart. Problems can be extraordinary challenges to overcome. We can convert the error into a wonderful growth opportunity.
Teach your students to be consistent in the effort to overcome and dominate, to forge his will and heart. Today's hedonistic and consumer culture is our young people making a mass amorphous and without will, unable to lower slaughter, drugged by the siren song of an advertisement that only sees them as potential buyers.
Young people must understand that the study involves sustained effort, that the important goals require hard work, tenacity, strong-willed, maturity. Napoleon said that victory belonged to which more persevered, and Bolívar wrote: «art beat is learning difficulties».
Frequently, the great men raised its success from the ashes of his defeats that never accepted to be definitive. The extraordinary actor and dancer Fred Astaire had stuck in the fireplace of her mansion in Beverly Hills the report of the director when he performed for the first time: "does not have the idea of action Little daring! Perhaps, with much effort, you can get to dance a little». Darwin wrote in his autobiography: «all my teachers and my father I was considered a common boy, below the intellectual level». The editor fired Walt Disney for lack of ideas. The own Walt Disney went bankrupt several times before building Disneyland. Thomas Edison's teachers said that it was too dumb to learn. The own Edison made almost 10,000 trials to find filament which brought the electric light. Albert Einstein did not speak up to four years and did not read to the seven. Her teacher described him as "mentally slow, unsociable and locked up" always in silly dreams. Expelled from the school and would not let him enter in the Polytechnic of Zurich. Louis Pasteur was a mediocre student and was ranked number fifteen on twenty-two. The father of the sculptor Rodin said: «I have an idiot son». Described as the worst student of the school, Rodin failed three times in his attempt to enter the Academy of fine arts. His uncle said he was ineducable. León Tolstoï, the author of the extraordinary novel war and peace left the school and was considered «no capacity or willingness to learn». Babe Ruth, considered by some the best baseball player of all time, even though it broke the record of racing, also holds the record of failed launches. Winston Churchill did not approve sixth grade. He became Prime Minister at the age of 62 after a lifetime of defeats and setbacks. Eighteen publishers rejected the original Juan Salvador Gaviota, the bestseller by Richard Bach. Fifteen editors rejected also the first great work of Julio Verne five weeks in a balloon.