In order to truly understand the word quixotic I think one must have read Don Quixote by Cervantes, an old fashioned yet extraordinary book.
Lately I've been feeling quite quixotic myself, although perhaps not to the same degree as the person who coined this term. Admittedly I've always been a dreamer, I've always believed that everyone should have a dream. For what is life without something to reach for, to wonder about, to hope for?
However, my dream (well my latest dream) has been taking quite a hammering this last month or so, and after receiving blow upon blow (or in this case rejection letter upon rejection letter), my poor dream has been smashed to smithereens and is scattered about on the floor at my feet.
My question to myself is whether or not I have the courage, the heart, or the energy to pick up those minuscule pieces and attempt to string them back together, to perhaps carry on with hopes of success through another avenue. Or would it be safer for my weeping heart, and better for my aching exhausted eyes which have produced far too many tears over one topic, to just let this dream slip through my fingers and force my soul to find something else to be passionate about?
Or perhaps, like others, I should just give up on dreaming altogether?
Well, with the quixotic spirit behind me, channelling Don Quixote and adapting his lackadaisical, headstrong approach, I decide that I am going to continue pushing forward. At the end of all this, even if things do not turn out the way I envision, at least I will be able to look back and know that I did all I could, and like a true knight, I did not back down.
I'm going to quote some websites for you here, these sites talk about some people you may have heard of and what happened in the lives of those people.
ReplyDeleteWalt Disney [...] had a bit of a rough start. He was fired by a newspaper editor because, "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas." After that, Disney started a number of businesses that didn't last too long and ended with bankruptcy and failure.
[Einstein] was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School.
Darwin gave up on having a medical career and was often chastised by his father for being lazy and too dreamy.
[Isaac Newton] never did particularly well in school and when put in charge of running the family farm, he failed miserably, so poorly in fact that an uncle took charge and sent him off to Cambridge where he finally blossomed into the scholar we know today.
In his early years, teachers told Edison he was "too stupid to learn anything." Work was no better, as he was fired from his first two jobs for not being productive enough. Even as an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. Of course, all those unsuccessful attempts finally resulted in the design that worked.
During his lifetime, Van Gogh sold only one painting, and this was to a friend and only for a very small amount of money.
Today nearly every child has read The Cat in the Hat or Green Eggs and Ham, yet 27 different publishers rejected Dr. Seuss's first book To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.
Schultz's Peanuts comic strip has had enduring fame, yet this cartoonist had every cartoon he submitted rejected by his high school yearbook staff. Even after high school, Schultz didn't have it easy, applying and being rejected for a position working with Walt Disney.
The first book by this author, the iconic thriller Carrie, received 30 rejections, finally causing King to give up and throw it in the trash. His wife fished it out and encouraged him to resubmit it, and the rest is history, with King now having hundreds of books published the distinction of being one of the best-selling authors of all time.
I know there is a lot there, but hopefully some inspiration to not give up on a dream.
thanks for that :) you really brightened my day!!
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