Adversity in Life

People who are facing adversity and even some people who are poor are often considered as being disadvantaged in life. To be known in the society the poor need to prove themselves as capable beings in order to face the world of opportunities. In the process of proving their abilities extra effort is needed in most cases especially if they are facing a challenging life of poverty. However, the society takes time to recognize efforts of poor people, and since they are poor, extraordinary efforts could help them to catch up with wealthy people. 

There are many cases of successful people who came from unrecognized societies or even poor backgrounds, but persistence and hard work have managed to pull them through. Sometimes it takes poor people to have the right attitudes so that friends or family can support and make it easier to achieve goals. In most cases I do agree that facing adversity, being poor or an outsider can actually be a key to success.

According to the article, ‘‘The Use of Adversity’’ by Malcolm Gladwell, readers can learn that life can be always much harder for poor people, but there is often a way for them to succeed. In the same article Weinberg was explained that as a poor person born in Brooklyn who made it through to be ‘‘Mr. Wall Street’’ working from a janitor to a company where he got opportunity to express his point of view without being discouraged since he was not sharing a background similar to other workers.. Such an example explains how poor people can use their outsiderness to make it through life. Malcolm also added that outsiderness gives the rich class of people or middle class people a contrary understanding of poor people by exaggerating their otherness while poor people can end up benefiting since they are already considered differently.

Eagerness and willingness to prove that poor people can do something contrary to their unfavorable life conditions can also contribute to their success. Today, it is real hard to be recognized if poor people do not have the power or resources. Resources can be anything such as money which we consider as wealth.  Sometimes human being tends to count Intelligence as a resource which people can attain. As written in New York Times the article “A hired Gun for Microsoft, In pursuit of Google,” by Miguel Helft, the story contains a good example of how poor people can archive success through eagerness and willingness or self discipline. Lu, who is from China facing poor life was well explained in person and helped to us readers have an understanding of how personal discipline of doing work and give a try can actual be a key to success. A hardworking man, Lu who receives $10 per month salary in China to a Microsoft engineering executive, has proved to readers that poor people can improve their lives in into better life or even change it to wealthy life.

Persistence in life is one of the most important aspect I believe poor people can use to become successful. There is no one is perfect and since even the poor people have their own ways to follow their dreams. Based on a blog, ‘‘7 Sure Fire Ways to develop Persistence’’ by Donald Latumahina, I was very impressed with the way he categorized seven ways to develop life persistence. Latumahina listed the seven ways to develop persistence as follows: learning the life of successful people, expecting a hard way not an easy one, don’t underestimate the amount of time required, having a big why, knowing how to handle failures, finding partners, and minimizing of stress. A good example of a person known worldwide is Oprah Winfrey whom in the past has passed through a number of challenges, yet made it to the top among the billionaires in the world. A short history of Oprah as written by Janet Mock, ‘‘Oprah Biography’’ states what kind of life Oprah has experienced in the past, and make the readers and the fans get to know her childhood which she had a lot of troubles including being sexually abused and even movements of settlement between living with her mother, father or grandmother due to family status. 

Oprah took those obstacles as challenges in one way or another she learnt how to handle her failures such as giving herself one more chance to go for her dreams to success. Oprah is such an encouragement to the poor people especially black people who are facing adversity life that now look on her as an icon to success and even sometimes using her guidance through her media shows.

To conclude, I do believe that facing adversity, being poor, or being an outsider can actually be the key to success. Examples of some of famous people who show readers that they started with struggling poor life from their some point in life, but they managed to make it through life; encourage readers and even some poor people to use their good examples as their icon towards changing struggles towards success.