LUCK…!

He worked by day & toiled by night. He gave up play & some delight. Dry books he read, new things to learn. And forged ahead, success to earn. He plodded & with faith & pluck; And when he won, Men called it luck!
- Anonymous

When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he tried over 2000 experiments before he got it to work. A young reporter asked him “How it felt to fail so many times”. He said, “I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2000-step process.” “Failure is the highway to success,” Tom Watson Sr. said. “If you want to succeed, double your failure rate.”

In the 1940s, another young inventor named Chester Carlson took his idea to 20 corporations, including some of the biggest in the country. They all turned him down. In 1947, after 7 long years of rejections, he finally got a tiny company in Rochester, NY, the Haloid company, to purchase the right to his invention- an electrostatic paper-copying process. Haloid became Xerox Corporation!

A little girl, when was 4 years old, contracted double pneumonia and scarlet fever, which left her with a paralyzed left leg. At age 9, she removed the metal leg brace she had been dependent on and began to walk without it. By 13, she had developed a rhythmic walk, which doctors said was a miracle. That same year she decided to become a runner. She entered a race and came in last. For the next few years, every race she entered, she came in last. Everyone told her to quit, but she kept on running. One day, she actually won a race. And then another. From then on, she won every race she entered. Eventually this little girl — Wilma Rudolph, went on to win three Olympic gold medals.

With a desire to win a lottery ticket, a man started worshipping the God. Twice daily he performed Prayers to please the Lord. He continued this religiously. Twenty years passed by. Goddess, impressed by the man’s dedication & worship, asked the God, “This devotee of yours is praying tirelessly with full devotion for last twenty years. Why don’t you fulfill his wish of winning a lottery ticket?”. “I got pleased fifteen years back” replied the lord. “Then what is keeping you from granting his wish?” asked the Goddess. “Well! I am waiting for him to BUY A LOTTERY TICKET,” was the answer.

Luck, God’s helping hand or any other form of support is helpful if and only if there lies a foundation of sincere effort & hard work.

R. S. Bhatia
Dr. Sandeep Chopra
Meenakshi Ahuja

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