Name

Institution

Facilitator

Date

Persistence and Success

Dreams are made real only when someone attempts to follow them persistently. This explains the relationship between the digital painting “Success” by Urban Art Gallery, the essay “Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dream” by Studs Terkel and the short story “A Man Told Me the Story of His Life” by Grace Paley. Success is depicted as a function of persistence as there are struggles along the way. The success of a person only depends on whether they can push the stone to the top of the cliff or they will give up along the way. When a man persists, he succeeds and generates praise from the people. The mixture of color and illumination in the painting also shows success aspects and the challenges that people face up the ladder of success.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dream to become the best-built man in the world is the start of his own success. Success starts by envisioning it and believing that one can make it even through the hardships. Arnold says that he thought he was daydreaming to think he would be Mr. Universe but hard work took him straight to his dreams (Terkel 1). At the beginning of every struggle, you have to choose what you want and decide to follow it. Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about a choice to start working on his dream. He knew it would not be easy. He notes that it took five years of trying hard to achieve his dream. However, giving up was not a choice for him as he knew that this would block his dream from coming true. In order to succeed, one must try continuously even when faced with obstacles that threaten his or her dream.

Arnold Schwarzenegger says that continuous hunger for success is the only way a person can keep scaling new heights of success. He never got comfortable at achieving any milestone that he set. Once he achieves a milestone, his immediate action is to set a new milestone and work to achieve a new level of success (Terkel 3). It is his philosophy to continually follow success and try to get rich. Similarly, the digital painting “Success” by Urban Art Gallery also resemble the story of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The painting shows the path to success through pictorial presentation.

Using art to tell stories is not easy, as one should bring out the story in his picture clearly in a way that blocks any misinterpretation from the target audience. In the painting, the man is trying to push the stone up the cliff. The artist shows that the decision and energy to start determines the level of success that a person makes despite the hardness of the task. However, obstacles try to hinder success and one ponders giving up as shown in the drawing. Midway through the task, the man seems tired and stops pushing the stone (UrbanArtGalleries). This may show two opposing ideas, all which are necessary for success. First, rest enables one to reflect on what he has done and gather more strength to push his dream. It is easy to interpret that the man is resting in order to gather more energy to push the stone to the top. The task of pushing the stone to the tops I a tough one with many obstacles, which implies that one needs to have enough energy to undertake the task. Resting and reflection is important in pushing the man to success.

However, one can also interpret this as the temptation to give up during ones journey to success. The man looks tired of pushing the stone and turns away from his target, which is the top of the cliff. The art shows that one should keep the target in mind even when it looks tough to achieve and persist in order to achieve it. The man looks outdone by the challenges along the way of pushing the stone to the top. In order to succeed, one must persist and find new ways of handling the challenges that come his way. The man then continues pushing the stone until he gets it on top of the cliff where he is seen celebrating his success. The artist shows here that success is sweet but the journey to success is bitter. One must endure the bitter journey to taste the sweet ending. However, if one has no choice, he or she may not taste the sweetness of success like Vicente in the short story “A Man Told Me the Story of His Life” by Grace Paley.

Vicente wanted to be a doctor because of his passion about medicine. He did all he could to ensure that he prepared adequately to become a doctor. He studied every organ in the human body, its function, behavior, and problems that could face it. He understood all this. However, when he told his teachers that he wanted to become a doctor, they refused and told him that he could be a good engineer because he understood mathematics very well (Paley 1). The schoolteachers allude that his performances did not show he could make a good doctor. This shows that in the struggle for success, people will try to define their perceived version of what you should be. In the story of Arnold Schwarzenegger, he came second in his bid to become Mr. Universe. However, he had a choice and did not give up despite the opinion of people on his undertaking. However, Vicente is in a different situation. Unlike Schwarzenegger, Vicente did not have a choice. He had to follow the recommendations of the school, as he believed that they understood his ability.

Vicente later says that the situation became even complicated when he learnt that he would join the army. Vicente never thought that this would come up. To make matters worse, he becomes a cook and has to prepare food for mane people. This ends his dream to become a doctor completely. However, it serves as a lesson in the journey to success. One must persist on their dreams. Many forces and alternatives try to end people’s dreams. When one knows what they want, like Schwarzenegger, it is not easy to push them off their dreams.

In conclusion, success is a journey of choices where one must know what he or she wants and chooses to work hard and achieve it. However, persistence also helps like the case of Arnold Schwarzenegger who came second twice in his journey to becoming Mr. Universe. However, he attained his success through his persistence and eventually became Mr. Universe after five years. However, one must push on like the man in the drawing despite the rough and challenging journey.

 

Works Cited

UrbanArtGalleries. Urban Art Galleries. 2014. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.

Terkel, Studs. “Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dream”. New York Times. 2002

Paley, Grace. “A Man Told Me the Story of His Life”. Journal of Literature, 2004.