It's essential to success.

You have read the story of Michael Malloy,‘The man who would not die.’ in 'article of the day' provided by 'The Free Dictionary', dated 3 May 2009, a Sunday. To collect their insurance on him, the five villains had to resort to so many ways to kill him. They gave the alcoholic so many drinks throughout the day. Yet, he survived! They replaced his drinks with poisons such as antifreeze, turpentine, horse liniment and rat poison.He did not die! They made him eat raw oysters soaked in wood alcohol, carpet tacks and metal shavings. It did not affect him in any way. They even left him in the snow to freeze. He did not have any problem with that! Finally, in desperation, they drove a taxi at 45 mph into him. It only landed him in a hospital for a few weeks! It was, of course a fantastic story. How was it possible for a man to not die despite being given so many harmful as well as poisonous things to ingest? How was it possible with so many attempts on his life? Unbelievable! Yet, according to the story, it was true.

Eventually, he did die of gas poisoning in January 1933 when they used a hose to pump gas from a jet into his lungs. With that, the story illustrates very well how success was finally achieved through perseverance. If, at any one of their failures, they had given up, their scheme would not have succeeded!

In our lives, even in honest living, there are times we face hardship and problems which seem to dog us every step of the way.

For me, it was my poor health during the first fifteen years of my life. Fate dealt me what seemed a lousy card which turned out to be my lucky draw. Through having suffered the first few years and the trauma of having a medium walk over my painful body, I realized the importance of good health.

Good health is not easy to come by when one’s body is weak and often wreaked with mysterious kinds of sickness. It took many years of struggle to reach the health I enjoy today. If, at any time I had lost hope of turning my health around, I would have remained a sickly, weak person. And because it took so much and so long to arrive at this health, I treasure it even more.

My health is a part of my thoughts every day. I am constantly in search of ways to improve my health even more. Once I told a friend about the latest health research on a certain natural supplement and was making enquires on it; with the friend’s astonishment at my search expressed thus: ‘Come on! You do not need to think of improving your health any more. Look at you! What more do you want?’

Inventors are constantly trying out things to improve on certain things which they have their minds on. Sometimes, it is easy. At other times, it is tough. At such times, they have to persevere. If, for a moment, they become frustrated and drop their project, all their efforts would have gone down the drain.

To be successful in life, we have to learn to drop away frustrations and disappointments and continue to work at the things we want out of life.

Life’s like that. Isn’t that true?