This piece came to me from an experience yesterday. I stopped at the gas station to buy gas. A normal day. While waiting on the queue I noticed kids all over the place. Some begging for money. Some selling stuff - oranges, sweets, CD, what have you.
I've seen kids like this before, but I'd never noticed them. I did yesterday.
I noticed how these kids - both the beggars and the sellers - constantly looked around for someone to beg from or sell to. The beggars' eyes scanned every car, looking for a soft heart betrayed by pity in the eyes. The sellers' eyes scanned every car as well, but they looked for something else - desire for the items they hawked.
These kids were hungry. Not just hungry for food, but hungry for the things they wanted in life. They knew life didn't owe them a thing, rather it was them that owed life. Owed life to provide a return on what they'd been so freely given. They knew people didn't owe them anything, so they had to find ways to give to people, so people could give back to them. In exchange for money, the beggars gave a feeling of self-righteousness, and the hawkers refreshment and entertainment.
Though they sought different things in the eyes they scanned, they applied the same principle of tenacity. They didn't take rebuffs personally. A rebuff was just feedback from a would-be victim (for a lack of a better word) that he or she wasn't interested in buying something or in giving away money. A rebuff was just a hint to move on to the next car, to move on to the next opportunity. Simple.
Two simple things - tenacity and the ability to scan the environment constantly for opportunities. Two things that are not taught in school. Two things that are essential for ultimate achievement in life.
These kids had large helpings of these two things. And I, despite my expensive local and international education, did not.
I thought about this all the way home. I realized that I still drove my old 504 because I wasn't hungry enough. Wasn't hungry enough to demand from life what I wanted. Or was it that I didn't know what I really wanted. The thoughts played over and over in my head. I felt ashamed.
Given so much, yet doing so little with it. The very gifts that were meant to assure my success in life have dulled the twin attributes that are more important than all else. I looked at those kids with so much envy. I would not trade places with them, no, but God, what I would give to have their hunger and tenacity.
