What It Takes For One To Succeed

Always, it is the lack of perseverance that creates the distance between you and your dreams.  Perseverance is the act of being steadfast.  A persevering person is one who is longsuffering and overwhelmingly full of determination.  It is innate, but can also be acquired with much effort.  Determination and perseverance are the keys to success.  These qualities draw the border between winners and losers and not actually the medals and trophies that they have in their shelves.

There is one person I know who epitomizes perseverance.  He is Atty. Guillermo M. Alcantara, a brilliant lawyer from Iloilo City who, in his younger days, was also a member of the Philippine swimming team.  He is the highest paid lawyer in the City of Iloilo and countless persons seek him for legal advice.  He is now in his fifties and as he looks back, he realizes that it had been his perseverance which brought him to where he is now.

When he was a child of 5 years, he began selling rice cakes and newspapers in the streets for his daily school allowance.  He is one of the bravest I know.  He would always get beaten up during school fights but would always remain standing and would go back the next day to get beaten up again.  And when he gets home from school, his father, a strict man who would always course his frustrations to the poor boy, would beat him up some more until his body turns blue and violet.  Nonetheless, he still considers his father his personal hero and would always try to find ways to make him proud.

In high school, he entered his school’s swimming team thinking that he could make his father notice him.  he practiced hard and finally managed to get the approval of the coach.  He, however, lost his first competition.  His father would tell him he would not amount to anything.  But never did he let this get in the way of his goal.  Rather than sulk, he practiced harder, working out his every weakness and polishing his strengths.

Not long after, he became a champion and for a time, held the world record for the fastest time in Backstroke.  The trophies and medals and other recognitions that he earned over the years were too many to count but many as they are, they were nothing compared to achieving his life-long dream-to finally earn the love and respect of his father.