Conceptions Of Success

What does success mean to me?

Is it the achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted?
The attainment of fame or prosperity?
A favorable or desired outcome?


Well, success to me mainly revolves around the first definition.I truly feel that success is something that we should be proud of due to the hard work and endeavors that we have struggled to put in. In return, all our efforts have paid off, leading to a favorable outcome which may be bring about factors like wealth and fame. Success is being linked to two very important qualities- Perseverance and Determination. With these two qualities, anybody can be successful if they put their heart and soul in achieving their goals. Success actually shows us how far we've come in challenging ourselves to never give up and continue to persevere and excel in whatever we do. For me, success does not have to mean attaining fame and prosperity but it is more of what you have attained for yourself, what you have dedicated your passion to and the desirable outcome after putting in all the blood, sweat and tears in what we strongly want to succeed in.

For me, I feel really inspired when I think of Barack Obama, America's new president-elect for the year 2009. Recently, he won the elections held throughout all the states of America. I would like to elaborate more on his amazing biography.

Biography: Barack Hussein Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was born of Luo ethnicity in Nyanza Province, Kenya. He grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British. Although reared among Muslims, Obama, Sr., became an atheist at some point.

Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in Wichita, Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he signed up for service in World War II and marched across Europe in Patton’s army. Dunham’s mother went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the G. I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved to Hawaii.

Meantime, Barack’s father had won a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya pursue his dreams in Hawaii. At the time of his birth, Obama’s parents were students at the East–West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Obama’s parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. Obama’s father went to Harvard to pursue Ph. D. studies and then returned to Kenya.

His mother married Lolo Soetoro, another East–West Center student from Indonesia. In 1967, the family moved to Jakarta, where Obama’s half-sister Maya Soetoro–Ng was born. Obama attended schools in Jakarta, where classes were taught in the Indonesian language.

Four years later when Barack (commonly known throughout his early years as "Barry") was ten, he returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, and later his mother (who died of ovarian cancer in 1995).

He was enrolled in the fifth grade at the esteemed Punahou Academy, graduating with honors in 1979. He was only one of three black students at the school. This is where Obama first became conscious of racism and what it meant to be an African–American.

In his memoir, Obama described how he struggled to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage. He saw his biological father (who died in a 1982 car accident) only once (in 1971) after his parents divorced. And he admitted using alcohol, marijuana and cocaine during his teenage years.

After high school, Obama studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York, graduating in 1983 with a degree in political science.

After working at Business International Corporation (a company that provided international business information to corporate clients) and NYPIRG, Obama moved to Chicago in 1985. There, he worked as a community organizer with low-income residents in Chicago’s Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on the city’s South Side.

I strongly believe that coming from a background with a multiracial heritage, Barack Obama must have had to overcome a lot of obstacles based on the social perceptions people gave him. Racism was something Obama had to battle throughout most of his years in school as a student. Despite all this along with the poor family life he had-divorced parents and half-siblings, Obama still persevered and had a very strong mindset about himself. He never failed to give up on his dreams and ambitions.

After gaining all the votes from the various states of America, Obama won by quite a landslide. All his rallying efforts could have won the hearts of many Americans and judging from his charismatic self, Obama was clearly deserving to win the elections. Despite all the hardship he had undergone throughout his life, he did not let anything hinder his dreams of becoming the next president.

Was it the political Science degree he had attained?

Was it his determination to prove to others that even African-Americans can make a great difference in the lives of others?

Was it his lack of family support and misleading childhood that had actually led him to change for the better and prove himself to the rest of America?

These questions certainly proves the aspects of Barack Obama's success. The elections would affect global situations and not only America. I feel that he is a hero to many for what he has done and what he promises to do in his presidency term. Obama is an inspirational man whom I perceive can change the lives of many in one way or another. I feel that Obama has already accomplished his goals and dreams and all he has to do now is to live it. Barack Obama is truly admirable and I think many can look up to him and kearn a lot from his remarkable self, in terms of actions, attitudes and thinking.