Work as hard as everyone else

I worked as a caddie on a golf course during my teenage years. One morning I was working for Rappaport and Haas, two older gentleman that had retired and played golf together every morning. The three of us went through almost the entire round without saying more than a few words to one another. The silence was broken on the tee box of the 16th hole, a 180 yard par 3, while waiting for a group of ladies to finish up on the green. Haas said to me, "So Brian what are you studying in college?" as he swung his golf club lazily against the short grass. I replied, "Computer Science." Then Haas asked, "What do you want to do with your degree in Computer Science?" I answered, "I'm not really sure, but I know I want to be independently wealthy so I can play golf like you guys." Mr. Rappaport's ears perked, he turned, pulled the cigar from his mouth, and interjected, "If you want to be successful it's very simple: All you have to do is work as hard as everyone else, and then work harder." And I stood there in silence for he taught me as one having authority, and not as the scribes.


Brian Donohue
Brooklyn, NY

Comments

Post a Comment

Favorites

This is a puzzle.

Beyond this message a challenge awaits; In the listserve, no links are allowed, what a cruel fate! The first clue must be deciphered by ROT 8. . Let me know and just email if your brain needs a spark Your first clue is just after this punctuation mark / dsoqwj vwxwfvafy lge jgtafkgf af lg cadd s egucafytajv Listserve Puzzle listservepuzzle[AT]gmail.com
Read more

21,612 is a lot

Hi, everyone. I'm a teenaged girl. I'm not arrogant enough to think that I know much about the world. I'm 18, a freshman in college, and I struggle every day trying to see into the future: into what might be, where I might go. Recently I've decided that my destiny in life is to be a high-school biology teacher, but ask me again later and perhaps that will have changed. One thing I feel passionate about is body modification. Somehow my standards of beauty have developed in a way that put piercings, tattoos, implants and scarification at the forefront. However, my parents have threatened to cut off their funding for my education if I modify myself in any way. I already have piercings, and though my family will never see them due to their private locations, I would love to be able to share this important part of my life with them and express myself through modification in a more public way. Essentially, they have rejected my lifestyle, and through this, they have ...
Read more

Tiny wings

Hi all, I want to write about a subject that is very close to my heart - bees! I started bee keeping last year, and have two colonies right now. These two already managed to supply my family and my friends with more than enough honey, and keeping the bees is a tremendously satisfying activity. They smell so good, and are very tidy animals, and are just very, very interesting overall. The insects' way of dealing with the world is just so very different from how we as mammals approach it - it seems almost alien. Anyways, what is probably most impressive is the workload these little animals deal with. For one kilo of honey, they visit 4 million flowers, and fly a distance equivalent of more than 4 times around the earth. Think about that for a second. And then, if you start to think about how they "furniture" their housing themselves by the wax they sweat out, how they can control temperature inside the hive to the tenth of a degree, how they collectively make decisions i...
Read more