Cover letter

Cover letter

Dear Mentors,

            Finally after almost four months of reading, writing, drafting and revising, I now present to you the outcome of my hard work, my E-portfolio. Compiled here in my blog are all the essays that we have written all throughout the term in the two components of ENGLCOM, WC and RVLC. This is the application of all that we have learned from you, our mentors. So with that, I would like to express my sincerest thanks to you for helping us and being with us all the way for the past four months. Without you, we would not have gone this far in improving ourselves in the aspects of academic reading and writing.

            Looking back from my entry essays, I can see that I have improved a lot in many ways. May it be in organizing my ideas, constructing outlines and sentences, paraphrasing, writing effective titles, introduction and conclusion, developing main ideas in paragraphs, avoiding contractions, writing good thesis statements, and aiming for an effective use of words in an essay. These improvements of mine all lead to writing an essay which is good enough and worth to read. I may not have the best essays in our class, but I am proud enough to say that I did my best in every essay I have written. Still, I do know that I still have a lot more to improve. Writing these essays was not that easy, these essays are the results of countless processes of drafting, and revising. But I can say that writing these essays provided me a fun learning experience. These essays are the applications of what I have learned; they are the fruits of my hard work. So now I present to you my ENGLCOM essays.

Have fun reading!

Sincerely,
Micah Angela C. Magpali 

Documentary Analysis

Analysis of the documentary:
The Secret

“The Secret” is a feature length documentary presentation which reveals the Great Secret of the Universe. It is a 2006 film directed by Drew Heriot, produced by Paul Harrington and Rhonda Byrne, the author herself of the book (the Secret), and was distributed by Prime Time Productions. The film entails a series of interviews designed to demonstrate that everything that a person wants or needs can be satisfied by believing in an outcome, repeatedly thinking about the outcome, and maintaining that positive emotional states to attract that outcome. The said film was distributed through DVD and through online. It has attracted criticisms from the mainstream press but has fascinated famous individuals as well such as, Oprah and Ellen DeGeneres. This film offers by far the best description of the Law of Attraction because it presents the principles of the law crystal clear and evident. The law of attraction states the theory that anything and everything you want to attract in life, you will attract in theory. It implies that we control everything that we cannot comprehend as anything as a natural balance.

Working on the rhetorical appeals, I have observed the use of emotional and motivational appeals in the documentary.  Perhaps the most common way of conveying a pathetic appeal is through narratives or stories and this was used in the documentary. Such as in the case of the woman diagnosed with breast cancer but was immediately healed not because of any treatment or surgery. But because she just had faith, believed and told herself every single day that she is already healed. Another was the story of a man being hospitalized and paralyzed but was then able to move and got out of the hospital within a span of a few months because just like what the woman who has breast cancer did, he also believed that he will be out of the hospital and get back with his life immediately. Lastly, was about the story of the man who possesses “a gratitude rock”, a rock that has somewhat kind of a power to heal and change your life. These stories have an emotional and imaginative impact on an audience, and the use of such stories can move the audience either to decision or action or can change the way a person believes. I also observed the use of vivid language, emotional language and numerous sensory details in the documentary, which was effectively used to persuade the audience and affect the audience’s emotional response. This overall is the pathos of the film.

Moving on, the documentary is by far the most convincing documentary I have ever watched. It was great, probably because of its content and power of being able to be so direct and convincing at the same time. It maybe because of the series of interviews and speeches or teachings made by the philosophers, priests/pastors, doctors, psychologists, and distinguished writers/authors in the documentary. The way they speak and emphasize their points or their strong convictions were really the factors in convincing the audience, not to mention that they were experts in their own fields. But I somehow question the credibility of the statements made by these people, if they really have that sufficient knowledge about the issue in contention, or if the things that they keep telling the viewers in the documentary are nothing but their own beliefs and opinions. This particularly was the use of ethos in the film.

Indeed, attaching reasons to an opinion is the key method of arguing. And this was used by the experts in the documentary. In this case, the rhetorical appeal logos is used. They have used deductive and inductive reasoning to back up their claims. However, none of these so-called experts presented any facts or statistics to help support most of their claims. They did not present any kind of document as proof. Another is that the film claims that the Law of Attraction is kept secret, but there is no proof offered and no conscious effort has ever been made to keep the law a secret. Lastly is the presentation of electromagnetic waves/ vibrations as the explanation for the said law. There are many things wrong with this assertion according to the critique of Alexander Kjerulf. It is primarily the fact that while thoughts are at least part, electromagnetic waves, there is no scientific evidence or explanation that our brain waves alter the universe around us in any significant way.

To sum it up, the Law of Attraction itself is real, I endorse the teaching it presents, and can think of many events in my life of which can prove its validity and workability. But the arguments and explanations made and put forward in the documentary are alternately unscientific, nonsensical, or just plain wrong. No electromagnetic waves will emanate from our heads, magically transforming the universe and no mystical vibrations affect our surroundings. Remember that the universe does not always stand ready to fulfill our every wish. Rather, we change ourselves and then we change our circumstances. In the end, we can infer that “the Secret” offers precisely no scientific evidence for proof; instead it just proposes a number of unscientific and unproved explanations. So while the Law of Attraction is real, the documentary itself is simply fake.

Reflective Essay

Reflective Essay

English was a subject that I do not pretty much give attention to back when I was still in high school. I can say that I do not love it that much, and I do not hate it either. It seems like a pretty easy subject for me and is effortless to pass. Read and write, read and write. It was a subject that seems very boring to me back then. But reading was something I really love, while writing, not that much, and in particular, writing essays. Whenever our teacher asks us to write something, it felt like a burden to me. Maybe it is because of the fact that I’m always having a hard time finishing an essay. It usually takes me an eternity to finish just one paragraph.  And in high school before, I can say that writing is something usually taken for granted. Our high school teachers were not that strict when it comes to editing our works, and as what I have observed plagiarism is something frequently done. 

Being part of our school’s official student publication before, I thought that I already knew the basic mechanics of writing because we were given a lot of seminars about writing different kinds of articles. But I was wrong. I came to know that I still have a lot to learn and a lot to improve. This realization came when we took up ENGLCOM as part of our list of subjects for this term. ENGLCOM was a really great help for me in the aspects of academic reading and writing. With just three months that have passed, I can say that I have improved a lot, especially when it comes to writing essays. ENGLCOM was hard for the part that we need to write a countless number of essays. But because of that, I came to finish an essay faster than before because I was getting used to writing as the days passed. One thing I’m thankful for is the fact that our professors in this subject really never ceased when it comes to helping us. They edit and critique our essays over and over again and give us comments when it comes to revising it. It was a great help for me, especially because I don’t usually see my own errors in the papers that I wrote.  The errors that I usually commit were regarding observing parallelism in an outline, using of contractions in an essay, and adding in text citations within my essay. 

Over the past three months, we have written a handful of different types of essays including an extended definition essay and an argumentative essay. I experienced a lot of difficulties on the process of writing these particular types of essay, firstly because I do not have a background of writing such types of essay. Essays back in high school were simpler and less complicated to write. As I have said earlier, teachers back then were not that strict. But things have changed, because now, we are always asked to construct an outline before doing such essays to make sure that we have good organization of ideas. We’re also asked to pass series of drafts before coming up with the final output. This process involves lots of time, but in turn, this provided us the opportunity to be able to come up with an essay that is good enough and worth to read. It was also a good thing that we have peer editing in class. This gave our classmates the chance to read and edit our own work. It was really helpful because they notice mistakes I would have not noticed. Whether it is in the grammar, the use of punctuation marks, lack of transitional devices, the need to revise and paraphrase sentences, we become critical of each other’s works because we know that with every mistake we notice and every comment we make on their paper, can help our peer in developing and gaining progress with his/her work.

From the entry essays that I have written for the first month up to the essays that I have written for the concluding months of the term, I can say that I have improved a lot in many ways. In the aspects of using in text citation and citing resources, we were told every time by our professors to avoid plagiarism as much as possible. They always remind us to paraphrase the information we obtain from other individuals and cite the sources of this information at the end part of the paper. We were used to follow the APA format. I have not usually done this before in high school but now I always observe the instructions given to me by my professors to avoid committing the crime which is plagiarism. Another improvement in my writing skills also was that of using transitional devices to observe connection and fluidity in the ideas I wish to portray in my essay. On the other hand, writing the thesis statements for our essays was practically one of the most challenging for me. It was challenging because the thesis statement is the one that is going to set the tone for our paper. Writing the thesis statement was usually the part where most of us are having a hard and long time constructing.  But with the help of our professors, in the end we come up with the best thesis statements. A fun part for me was writing the title as well as the introduction and conclusion for my essays. I typically have a fond on doing these parts because it is in these parts where my creativity mostly works. I always find time not to create such boring titles, beginnings and endings in my essays because these are usually the parts where the reader looks forward the most.

Now that the term is gradually coming to an end, I can really perceive that all the hardships we have undergone through are paying off. We are close to accomplishing our requirements in ENGLCOM, and I can say that I have reached far enough from where I was before. It is mainly because of our ENGLCOM professors who served as our mentors all throughout the term. They contributed a lot to whatever we have achieved in this course. They practically taught us the values of hard work, patience, perseverance and passion for what we are doing, and they have helped us in reaching our full potentials as writers and readers in English.

I am pleased to have known that I have improved my writing skills. I have become a better writer but still I know that I have a lot more to improve, because as cliché as it may sounds, there is always room for improvement. Making mistakes from time to time is inevitable, but I will try to make less. Knowing the do’s and don’ts of writing is simply not enough, you have to apply it.

Argumentative Essay

Outline

Topic: Child Beauty Pageants

Thesis Statement:  Beauty pageants are exploitative and detrimental to the child’s overall well-being in a way that it damages the child’s health, it exposes the child to the danger of pedophiles/being in the public eye and lastly it instills a message to the child that physical beauty is the primary judge of one’s character therefore reducing one’s self-worth to appearances.

I.                   Introduction

A.    Background of the topic

B.     Thesis Statement

II.                Body

A.    All that is good about child beauty pageants

1.      Promotes self-esteem and builds confidence

2.      Teaches the child the importance of camaraderie and friendly competition

3.      Benefits the contestant through financial assistance and academic scholarships

B.     All that is bad about child beauty pageants

1.      Damages the child’s health

2.      Exposes the child to the dangers of being in the public eye

3.      Sexualizes young girls and enforces the message that physical beauty is the primary judge of one’s character

III.             Conclusion

A.    Summary

B.     Restatement of  the thesis statement

Inside the Living Dolls’ World:

The Ugly Truth about Child Beauty Pageants

A stage full of dolled-up or Barbie-like  little girls who with their fabulous mini gowns or dresses, or tiny swimsuits being worn, walk that stage flashing a million dollar smile on their little faces with all the poise and projection, judges eyeing them, an audience applauding and with their pushy parents cheering for them at the corner. That would be a typical child beauty pageant scene. Basically, a beauty pageant is an assemblage of girls or women at which judges select the most beautiful (Cartwright, 2011).  Beauty pageants mainly are divided into categories such as the talent portion, the modeling portion and the personal interview or the question and answer portion. Beauty pageant winners are so-called beauty queens and awards for these beauty contests include titles, tiaras or crowns, sashes, and cash prizes. Indeed today, beauty pageants for young girls are gaining more and more popularity. However, it has not only attracted popularity, but howls of criticisms too. I truly believe that beauty pageants are exploitative and detrimental to the child’s overall well-being in a way that it damages the child’s health, it exposes the child to the danger of pedophiles/being in public eye and lastly it instills a message to the child that physical beauty is the primary judge of one’s character therefore reducing one’s self-worth to appearances.

Although some people say that beauty pageants are not necessarily a bad thing, knowing that just like about everything else- there are the good and bad aspects. And to realize the big picture behind every thought, we have to examine both. Let us start with what all that is good about these child beauty pageants. First, they say that child beauty pageants promote self esteem and can be an instant confidence builder for the child. It is beneficial to the child’s self esteem in a way that it helps the child to step out of her comfort zone and overcome her shyness. This gives the child the confidence she needs to showcase her talents as well as her communication or public speaking abilities. Gaining poise and confidence is cited most often by parents as the reason for joining their child in these contests (Levey, 2000). The second one has something to do with camaraderie or friendly competition. They say that these pageants can teach the child the aspects of rules and fair play. They claim that competing with others can train the children to be gracious winners as well as good losers. Also, beauty pageants, they say, are meant to make the child realize and understand that there is a competition out there and that joining a beauty pageant is one means to preparing her to face the challenges in order to succeed in the future. Third is that these beauty pageants can be considered as a beneficial way for those who are experiencing a financial downside, because more often, winners of these pageants are given academic scholarships or financial grants. This in turn can minimize the family’s expenses for the child’s schooling in an academic year, a great help for those families who are financially challenged.

The things mentioned above may have sounded good for us to deem that beauty pageants can be somehow acceptable by society; however I think that those are not enough for us to immediately consider joining the fad of beauty pageants. Now let us remove the sugarcoating of these so-called beauty pageants so that we may be able to see clearly the ugly truth about this beauty pageant world. First and foremost, these child beauty pageants damage the child’s health, for it can cause cognitive, physical, and psychological problems to the child (American Psychological Association, 2007). A lot of child advocates and psychologists have already spoken out against child beauty pageants and claim that these pageants are not in the best interest of healthy child development. According to William Pinsof, a clinical psychologist and president of the Family Institute at Northwestern University, “Being a little Barbie doll says your body has to be a certain way and your hair has to be a certain way. In girls particularly, this can unleash a whole complex of destructive self-experiences that can lead to eating disorders and all kinds of body distortions in terms of body image.” Another claim was that of Dr. Ruth Schmidt Neven, a psychotherapist and psychologist who said that beauty pageants transform children into “pedophiliac fantasies” and should be illegal. Others have also called out for these beauty pageants to be outlawed. Other health problems that a good number of girls experience because of these pageants include paranoia, anxiety, and feelings of inferiority, anorexia, bulimia, poor self-esteem, depression and a countless number of more issues (Cartwright, 2011). Given these health-related problems, who in the world would risk their child to join pageants and acquire these problems that may soon manifest as long term disorders in life? Pageants definitely have a negative impact on the child. Pageants can cause kids to suffer numerous issues upon growing up and more likely those issues the child faces can be fatal.

Another downbeat would be about the fact that children are being exposed to the danger of pedophiles or being in the public eye. Such as in the case of a former American child beauty queen, Jon Benet Ramsey who was only 6 when she was brutally murdered in 1996. This so-called “Jon Benet factor” is most likely the primary reason why some parents do not allow their child to participate in such pageants, and this murder has attracted so much media attention that it has made pageants socially unacceptable to many people (Levey, 2000). Letting the child join beauty pageants is like putting her all in for a public display, along with putting her life too in jeopardy.

The last one has to deal with beauty pageants being responsible for the sexualisation of young girls. It also promotes a materialistic belief in them and it enforces the message that looks or physical beauty today- is the currency of one’s true beauty. Henry Samuel said in Britain Telegraph that French lawmakers want an all-out ban on child pageants, accusing the media and its other forms for promoting stereotypes that transform young girls into “sexual morsels.” Just look at the growing number of school girls as young as 8 who wear padded bras, high heels, or makeup and strike suggestive poses. Children because of beauty pageants are adultified, sexualized and judged by an adult defined, narrow beauty ideal. They are deprived of their childhood and make them eager to grow up. They get to wear sexual outfits and act inappropriately for their age. These young girls with every pageant also have to wear pounds of makeup, false lashes, have the hair on their skins waxed, wear high heels, which basically, are not designed for small feet; some also have to wear fake hair and even fake teeth. Shockingly, one mother even injects her eight year old child Botox from time to time all in the name of beauty pageants. Good news is, that mother has now lost custody over her child. With all these being done, contestants of child beauty pageants may develop a misconception of life and beauty as they grow up. They may think that only physical attributes matter and that it is the primary judge of one’s self-worth or character. It has something to do also with the child’s self-esteem. Pageants can damage the self-esteem of a young girl when things do not go as she would hope (Nussbaum, 1998). What will a mother tell her three year old daughter if the little girl says that she did not win because she is not beautiful enough?

In the end, although some parents believe that it is a great idea for their children to join beauty pageants because it can promote self-esteem, healthy competition and say that it is a great way for their children to gain confidence that will help their child to become socially acceptable, the good things that it brings still do not outweigh the negative things or the consequences that a child can obtain through joining beauty pageants. Because the truth is, pageants can damage the child’s health, may it be physical or psychological. It also exposes the child to the public and therefore risking the child’s safety. Lastly, it promotes the objectification and sexualisation of such young girls which is highly inappropriate and it can also lead the child to the conclusion that physical beauty is the primary judge of one’s character and that her self-worth is only based on what she got from the outcome of the competition. Those parents who are mainly responsible for pressurizing their child to join such absurd beauty pageants must ask this question within themselves, are the long term damaging effects that the child can get from joining these pageants worth the prize? As for me, a big no. I suggest that beauty pageants must be limited to only those who are already mature and old enough to make the decisions themselves of joining with full consent and when they are more emotionally capable of handling the negative emotional pressure or self esteem impacts one can get from joining such pageants. Because for little girls, it is better for them to just stick playing with their Barbie dolls. They still have a lot more drinking of milk to do.

References:

Bubac, H. (2012, November 11). Child Beauty Pageants: Excellent or Exploitive?. Retrieved from           http://english1100portfolio.blogspot.com/2012/12/child-beauty-pageants-excellent-or.html

Cromie, W. (2000, June 8). The whys and woes of beauty pageants. Retrieved from http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2000/006.08/beauty.html

Maliakal, L. (2013, February 7). Child Beauty pageants: Pros and Cons. Retrieved from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/child-beauty-pageants-pros-and-cons.html

Pull the Pin. (2012, April 6). Pull the Pin on Beauty Pageants for Children. Retrieved from http://www. pullthepin.com.au/about-us.html

Sparkle, B. (2012, June 10). 5 facts about Beauty Pageants. Retrieved from http://www.oprah.com/own-ouramericalisaling/blogs/5-facts-about-beauty-pageants#xzz2pddcdmel

Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

April 8, 2013

Maria Lourdes Sereno, Chief Justice
Office of the Chief Justice of the Philippines
Supreme Court of the Philippines
Padre Faura Street, Ermita, 1000 Manila

Dear Ma’am Maria Lourdes Sereno,

I am writing to you regarding the issue of whether the implementation of gun ban must be continued on even after the period of elections. The Philippines today is currently imposing a 150-day election gun ban also called as the Commission on Elections Resolution 9561 which states that “no person shall bear, carry, or transport firearms or other deadly weapons in public places,” and that “no candidate for public office, including incumbent public officers seeking election to any public office, shall employ, avail himself of, or engage the services of security personnel or bodyguards.” This year’s election gun ban started last 13th of January, which marks the beginning of the election period and is going to end on the 12th of June. The ban is being enforced by army-backed police contingents in 800 towns in 15 hot spot provinces where violence is usually expected given the intense rivalries of candidates. It has also activated at least 1,634 election checkpoints across the country to prevent further electoral violence.

Furthermore, this election gun ban probably was made because of the rising number of people we can see being attacked, killed or injured every time the country gears towards the time of elections. As for me, I think that the Commission on elections (Comelec), or maybe the government in particular must consider the calling for a total gun ban in the country, even after the season of elections. It is because of the recent high profile cases of gun related crimes which made headlines that have happened not only at the time where the election is nearing, but at on any particular time of the year.

As what the Philippine National Police have observed in the statistics they have made, the trend seem to be that gun-related crimes drops significantly whenever there is an election gun ban being inflicted. In 2010, when an electoral gun ban was strictly imposed, the crime rate incidence fell by nearly 70 percent during the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2009. This year’s election gun ban, in particular is to be anticipated to perform better in statistics. So if that happens, we can infer that the success of the election gun ban can merit the enforcement of a year round total gun ban.

Banning the use of guns all throughout during the election period by a law is one means of preventing violence and other heinous things done. But as I have said earlier, violence is not only present during the time of elections; it is present for the rest of the year.  With that, I suggest imposing a gun ban all year round because it can imply preventing and if not preventing, deterring the number of crimes done and violence throughout the year. With a total gun ban, there would be a decrease in shootings and other gun-related crimes and it would probably secure the safety of the public people.  I believed that a total gun ban must be furthered tackled on in the congress and must be immediately passed on as a law because of the said positive long term effects it can possibly make in our country.

Respectfully yours,

Micah Angela C. Magpali

Extended Definition Essay

Failing Forward

As the Great Confucius had once said, “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” Indeed, it is truly impossible to go through life without experiencing any kind of failure. It is a part of life, and as we know life is a mixture of success and failures. However, even if one considers that the fear of failure is the greatest barrier to success and one of the biggest fears in life, one should not worry because failures can add up to one’s experiences which will lead him to the road of success. Know that failures are not the opposite of success. Failures are our stepping stones to success. It just means that if we have failed in a thing or two, we should not treat it as another burden that we are about to carry. Instead, place them under our feet and use them as stepping stones to rise above them.  

            Failures are brought about by many factors. First is laziness. Laziness can be the start of one’s downfall. If one is just sitting there waiting in the corner, nothing good will happen. Actually, one would not fail at anything if he/she does not make the attempt. By that, one would not also succeed. Another thing is that failure is not the only punishment for laziness, there is also the success of others. Because, “If you do not play the game to win, someone else will” (Renard, 1910). The second cause for failure probably is one’s negative outlook or pessimistic attitude in life. It is said that an optimist sees every opportunity in difficulty, whereas a pessimist sees every difficulty in an opportunity. That just implies that optimism can lead to achievement while pessimism to failure. Lack of focus and concentration towards the goal can also be considered as another factor for failure. We need to have focus while we are driving towards our destination, which is success. Because if not, we might already be wandering in the wrong way because we keep turning right and left, which might lead us towards a dead end. Another reason for immediate failure is giving up. Giving up means to surrender in front of the problems we are facing in achieving our goal. Giving up means accepting the failure. Remember that every success story has a trail of failures behind it, so giving up is not the solution. Lastly, lack of faith and confidence in oneself can also be considered as one major cause of failure. It is man’s lack of faith that generally causes failures because there is no doubt about the fulfillment of a desire if man’s faith works with it. On the other hand, if at first we have no confidence in ourselves, we are already twice defeated in the race of life. But with confidence, we have won before we have started ( Garvey, n.d.).

            Failure indeed is necessary if we are to achieve success in life. Unfortunately, many people do not know how to overcome it. But overcoming the fear of failure is essential because that fear can stop us from reaching our full potential in life. So how can we overcome failure? To begin with, we have to understand that failure in life brings us wisdom. We have to experience failure for a reason, for experiencing it will give us the wisdom we need to succeed. Each failure we encounter adds up to our wisdom and brings us one step closer to success.  Understand that failure can teach us about the value of will-power, self-discipline, persistence and most importantly, hard work. Second is to learn as much as possible from the mistakes we have committed in the past. We have to see each failure as an opportunity to learn. Because if we fail to do this, we may waste a lot of time repeating the same mistakes in the future. Come to think of this. How did we learn to ride a bike? The answer: We first fell off a hundred times before becoming steady and gaining balance. So every time we fail or make a mistake, we need to learn as much as we can from it so that we are better prepared the next time around. The third one is about never losing focus towards the means in achieving our goal. We really have to keep our mindset straight forward towards our destination because that will bring us to the next point. The fourth one is concern about the essence of never giving-up. According to Thomas Edison, a noted inventor, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” So that just means that we should never give-up because maybe we are only one step away from the success we have always wanted. Why waste that long journey we have passed when in fact we are already close to our destination? Thomas Edison knew what it means of having the guts and not giving-up. He failed more than a thousand times before he came up with the successful light bulb. Truly indeed patience is the key. Another important thing to do to overcome failure is to have that positive mindset and to be confident. One must believe in his/her self that he/she got what it takes to surpass any obstacle or problems that may come in his/her life.  We must always be positive, and give everything our best shot. Last but not the least, keep on dreaming.

            We do know that not everyone who is on top today got there with success after success (Venable, n.d.). Oftentimes, those people who are best remembered by history are those who faced numerous challenges and failures on the way that forced them to work harder and enabled them to be one of those remarkable persons in history. Now let me show a glimpse of some stories about these great people who had first a bumpy start in life, but later on, came on top because they chose to succeed. Let’s start with the story of an American president. He was a man whose business failed at the age of 21, the love of his life died at the age of 26. He experienced nervous breakdown at the age of 27, and he was defeated in 8 elections. Yet this particular man became the 16th president of the United States and remembered as one of the greatest leaders in the history of America. His name is Abraham Lincoln. Next, this man was cut from his high school basketball team. He had missed more than 9000 shots in his basketball career. He had lost almost 300 of his games, and on 26 occasions, had been entrusted to take the game winning shot, but missed. As stated by this man; “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” He was Michael Jordan. Lastly, this guy was not able to speak until he reached the age of 4. He did not read until the age of 7. He was deemed even by his own parents as mentally retarded, slow and anti-social and was told by his teacher that he would not become anybody in life. Contrary to all probabilities, in 1921, this simple man won the Noble Prize in Physics and changed the face of modern physics. This guy was greatly known by the world by the name of Albert Einstein. These stories are truly very inspiring and worth-to-read. Inferring from these stories, we can see that these great people used their failures and hardships as stepping stones. Failure did not serve as a hindrance to these people from attaining their goals and becoming extra-ordinarily successful in life.

            In one way or another we will experience failure in life. But we should treat it as a positive thing because it can change so much in our lives. It will help change our vision and fuel up our determination. Know that only through facing battles and experiencing trials and hardships can we be strengthened, our vision in life cleared, confidence built, faith stronger and success/victory in life achieved. Failure can mold us and prepare us towards our journey to becoming a winner. Remember that the finest steel gets strengthened through the hottest furnace (Nixon, n.d.). Certainly, success and failure go hand in hand. But failure is something that many people fear, yet they do not realize that it is the true key to unlock success. So instead of viewing failure as something to be feared of, turn it into a "stepping-stone" on the path to success and gratification. Because in the end, one will realize that success is the destination and failure is the means to get there.

References:

Failure. (2011).In Merriam-Webster.com.Retrieved from http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/failure

Irabor, M.(2011, May 1).7 tips to overcome failure.Retrieved from http://stressguide101.blogspot.com/2011/05/7-tips-to-overcome-failure-.htm

Prasad, R. (2012, August 23). 50 Famously Successful People Who Failed At First.Retrieved, from http://www.onlinecollege.org/2010/02/16/50-famously-successful-people-who-failed-at-first/