Posted: 05/27/08

The World is Full of Educated Derelicts

J. Michael Sharman

For our Commencement season, here is a verse for graduates that, if believed, will make all the difference in their lives:

"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials; knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. Let patience have its perfect work, that you might be perfect, complete, lacking nothing." (James 1:2-4)   

Sales require dozens of rejections.

Inventions require hundreds of failed experiments.

A good tennis serve requires hours of practice with imperfect serves.

Childbirth requires nine months of uncomfortable pregnancy and hours of painful delivery.

A life worth living requires many trials to perfect it.

A young man named Sammy took a long time working his way through college by waiting tables and delivering newspapers. After graduation he got an entry-level position as a management trainee with J. C. Penny. After 5 years learning retail, he borrowed money from his father-in-law to buy a small variety store in Newport, Arkansas.

Seven years later, he rented a store in another town, but two of his main competitors, Woolworths & Scotts, were on the same town square. His competitors said he wouldn't last ninety days, but with his "self-service" experiment, the new store, "Walton' s Five and Dime" did well.

He kept experimenting and trying new things, and in 1962 he opened a big new store that he called Wal-Mart. And, as Sam Walton said of his venture, "like most other overnight successes, it was 20 years in the making."

Back in the early 1800s, another young man named Sam loved art-but his parents wanted him to be practical, so he majored in science and chemistry at Yale. When he got his degree, his parents relented and let him study art in Europe. After three years, a sculpture of his won an arts competition gold medal, but when nothing much else happened after two more years, his parents cut off the money and he had to come home.

In the United States, Sam wanted to earn a living doing historical paintings but failed, so he took up portraiture and did portraits for a number of famous people like President James Monroe and Inventor Eli Whitney.

He still fell short financially and painted a huge picture of the U.S. House of Representatives with 80 recognizable members in it. He tried to charge admission to see the picture, but the public wasn't that interested in paying to see politicians.

He did another massive picture, this one of the inside of the Louvre, a Paris art museum, and in his painting he replicated all of the famous pictures in the Louvre. It was really something, but the public still wasn't interested in paying to see it.

Supporting himself with a day job as an art professor at New York University, Sam tried hard to get a commission to paint historical murals in the U.S. Capitol's Rotunda, but he failed.

After that rejection, he never painted again. Samuel Morse began using his science and chemistry education to invent the telegraph. Since he was perpetually broke, he used whatever materials he had lying around, soldering together bits of wire, insulating it by wrapping the wire with cotton thread, and finishing it with parts from old clocks and art equipment.

It was five years before Congress would finally authorize payment for construction of a small experimental telegraph line. When it was ready, Samuel Morse, a strong Christian, tapped  out the message in Morse Code that would change the speed of communication from then on-"What hath God wrought?"

Calvin Coolidge wasn't a genius like Samuel Morse or a businessmen like Sam Walton, but he studied hard, became a lawyer, then a City Councilman, City Solicitor, Clerk of Courts, Mayor, State Representative, State Senator, Lieutenant  Governor, Governor, Vice President, and finally President of the United States.

His advice to young people was this: "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful 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."

That's the secret formula for how you become perfect, complete, lacking nothing.

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By J. Michael Sharman Click here for bio and archived articles