Growing up with three brothers led to an interesting childhood. Naturally, since I was the only girl, and therefore the odd one out, I usually found myself in a three against one situation. It was easy for my brothers to gain up on me, they learned early on that there is power in numbers. In one such circumstance I was fighting my younger brother for control of the television remote, a usual occurrence between siblings. Just as I was about to clutch the remote in victory my younger brother yells out for reinforcements. I knew then I was in trouble. First came in the second oldest brother who quickly jumped in the fight, followed soon after by the oldest brother. Even though there were three of them, and one of me, I held them off for a few minutes. I knew that there was no chance I could take on all three for very long but I was determined to at least make them work for it. So I fought with everything I had but, in the end, was defeated and left to watch the Saturday morning cartoons of my brother’s choice.
I have learned some interesting lessons growing up with three brothers. One lesson learned is that sometimes in life the odds are stacked against you. I have been faced with difficult problems with no easy solution, and I will inevitable be faced with more throughout life. But, what I learned from my brothers, and what I strive to apply to my life, in every aspect, is to keep on fighting. The truth is no matter how hard a person fights against an obstacle, sometimes they still will not win. I fought as hard as I could against my brothers to get that remote but, in that situation, I still did not succeed. However, I can guarantee one thing…that wasn’t the last fight we had.
"If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying, ''Here comes number seventy-one!''
-Richard M. DeVos