LIFE’S LESSONS
By Henrylito D. Tacio
At that time, Cesar V. Purisima was the Secretary of the Department of Finance. The occasion was the graduation ceremonies of the Far Eastern University’s Institute of Accounts, Business, and Finance, where he delivered a speech citing a story of a poor immigrant.
“During the Spanish era, two of the lowest jobs you could possibly have were carrying water, and repairing shoes, or cobblers,” he said. “This young man learned to be a cobbler after the Spanish era. But rather than just spend his life repairing shoes, he decided to begin collecting and selling rejected and overrun shoes from factories. Eventually, he saved up the capital to start his own shop.
“Yet he didn’t stop there. He worked hard to evolve himself and his business so he would always have a new way to serve the market. Today, he is the richest man in the Philippines,” Secretary Purisima concluded that anecdote.
If you’re still at loss as to who Sec. Purisima described in his story, it’s no other than the late great Henry Sy. A Chinese immigrant, he survived the loss of his father’s two sari-sari stores at the close of World War II, and after many decades, eventually installed himself as Asia’s shopping mall king. He survived other crises as well: the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ declaration of martial law in 1972, the chaos following opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr.’s assassination in 1983, the military coups against the Aquino administration from 1987 to 1989, and the Asian financial crisis which began in 1997.
“I don’t give up easily,” Sy was quoted as saying, “I look for solutions to problems. I want to make things happen.”
And happen, they did. In its March 17, 2003 issue, the US business magazine Forbes listed Henry Sy among the world’s billionaires, with an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion.
“You must never doubt the value of hard work,” shared Purisima, of the lessons he learned from the life of Henry Sy. He then quoted the words of American president Calvin Coolidge: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
“What Coolidge is saying is that there are plenty of people who are smart, educated, or talented, who do not succeed – simply because they do not have the fortitude to persevere in achieving their goals,” Purisima explained. “They look for the easy way out. Mr. Sy was not born into a life of privilege or good fortune. In fact, he was disadvantaged in many ways. It was only through dedication and hard work that he became a successful businessman.”
Perseverance was the key indeed
The world is full of people who persevere – and succeed in life. Stephen King, before he became a best-selling author, admitted that he hammered a nail into the wall when he was younger, and kept all his rejection slips there, until he reached 100. In his On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, he wrote: “When you get to 100, give yourself a pat on the back… You’ve arrived.”
Award-winning F. Scott Fitzgerald had the same experience. By July 1919, he accumulated 122 rejections slips, which he pinned in his room. It was not until his novel, This Side of Paradise, was published, that his short stories started appearing in magazines.
When British author J.K. Rowling started shopping around for publishers for her first book about a boy wizard, but it was turned down around a dozen times. Eventually, the children’s division of Bloomsbury paid the modest sum of about $2,400 for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and ended up making hundreds of millions from the magic at Hogwarts.
Physical handicaps aside
There are those who believe that being handicapped is an obstacle to becoming successful. But Maria Gracia Cielo “Grace” Magno Padaca, the former governor of Isabela, proved otherwise. The physically challenged look to her, a polio victim, is high proof that being handicapped should never be a barrier to success. She finished valedictorian in elementary and high school, and graduated magna cum laude in college. At the age of 44, she was bestowed the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service for “empowering Isabela voters to reclaim their democratic right to elect leaders of their own choosing, and to contribute as full partners in their own development.”
Like Grace Padaca, the late Senator Ernesto Herrera overcame a physical handicap caused by polio during his childhood to become one of the country’s outstanding leaders. He is the first Asian and the second individual to receive the George Meany International Human Rights Awards in 1985. He was likewise conferred the International Award of Honor by the International Narcotics Enforcement Officers Association of New York.
Before Herrera, there was Apolinario Mabini, a political philosopher and revolutionary who wrote a constitutional plan for the first Philippine republic of 1899-1901 and served as its first prime minister in 1899. In Philippine history texts, he was often referred to as “the Sublime Paralytic,” and as “the Brains of the Revolution.” To his enemies and detractors, he was referred to as the “Dark Chamber of the President.”
The story of Manny Pacquiao
Many famous men and women have to work hard to reach what they want in life. “Your key for personal success is persistence,” said Mack R. Douglas.
Take the case of Manny Pacquiao. He was born poor and had to step into the boxing ring at an early age to help his mother feed the family and allow him to go to school. When he was 15, his trainer took him to Manila, where he worked in a tailoring shop during the day and trained after 5 pm.
“I learned to sew,” said the boxer from General Santos City. He did other odd jobs like working in construction as a painter and welder. He sold flowers in front of the church every Sunday morning. “That’s how tough my life was.”
In the boxing arena, he won his first 12 fights before he lost by knock-out. After that, he went back to work in construction. When he told a friend that he would stop boxing because he lost already, he was chastised instead. “That’s part of boxing,” he was told. “You’re a good fighter, that loss will give you a lesson in boxing.”
Thinking it over, he went back to training again after a month hiatus. And it was all the way up. “Boxing helps you to discipline yourself, but it is very, very difficult,” he told Jim Plouffe, former editor-in-chief of Reader’s Digest. “I think boxing is not only a sport but also a business.”
Pain is a necessary part of learning.
“Successful people are not gifted; they just work hard – then succeed on purpose,” said G.K. Nielson. Dr. Jean-Louise Etienne, the man who walked alone to the North Pole, subscribed to that idea. As he explained it: “There are two great times of happiness: when you are haunted by a dream, and when you realize it. Between the two, there’s a lot of uncertainty, a strong urge to let it all drop. But you have to follow your dreams to the end. There are abandoned bicycles in every garage because their owners’ backsides got too sore the first time they rode them. They didn’t understand that pain is a necessary part of learning.
“I almost gave up a thousand times before reaching those moments of happiness when I forgot that I was cold. You can accomplish this through painting or music, provided you concede that, before you can play a Bach sonata, you must first learn to play scales. It is only through perseverance that each of us can find ourselves. It is up to each of us to find his own Pole.” – ###
