Success & Failure

FABLES FOR OUR GRANDCHILDREN
READING TIME: 2 MINUTES

Comparison is undermining. If you compare yourself to other people, you will usually decide you are not enough of whatever you’re measuring. You decide incorrectly!

Know this: There is no right answer to your life. You get to make it up as you go along. 

Did you ever hear of John Pierpont? He was a failure by some people’s standards. He graduated from Yale and became a teacher for a short time, but lost the job because he was too easy on his students. 

Then John became a lawyer where he also failed.

He opened a store next. It went bankrupt.

He was a good writer so he gave writing poetry a whirl. He was good, but couldn’t eke out a living from it. 

He returned to school again and became a preacher, only to be asked to resign from his first assignment.

John ran for Massachusett’s governor and was trounced.

He ran for Congress next, and lost by an even wider margin.

When the Civil War broke out, he enlisted as a Chaplain. He lasted two weeks.

When Pierpont  was 71, he died. He was a mere clerk in the Department of the Treasury at the time.

By worldly standards, John was a failure compared to the other successful men of his time. But failure is really not measured by wealth or fame. In every culture, every philosophy, and every religion, success is measured by character. 

John Pierpont gave his best to everything he tried. He died never knowing the lovely legacy he left, greater than anything he could have imagined. 

One day amid all his failures, John wrote a little song. To this day, children everywhere sing it.  He called it “Jingle Bells.” 

We all have our story. The money we make and the recognition we enjoy are incidental. The real stuff is who we are on the inside and what goodness we made while we were here. So stop looking around and comparing yourself to other people. Instead, look inside yourself and build your character. 

Jingle All The Way, Granny

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